Girl trouble
by Phoenix.G.Fawkes
Summary: Kageyama is annoyed by the boys that approach her to ask her out , to offer to carry her books for her or give her flowers . Hinata says that she'd like it if a boy once did any of that stuff for her, but she's a dumbass who doesn't know what she's talking about. When that boy for Hinata shows up, though, Kageyama's furious. GENDERBENT
1. 1 Anti-seduction tactics

Originally published: 2015-07-23

Many thanks to monsterr for her amazing betareading!

* * *

It's not something Kageyama thinks a lot about.

Sometimes, Hinata's the one who waits for her outside the classroom, if she was lucky enough to have her last period with Nishimoto, always anxious to get rid of his students as soon as possible. Constantly shifting the weight of her body from one foot to the other, as though she were about to jump for a spike and you take so long, Kageyama, I've been here for three hours already. Some other times, it's Kageyama who waits outside Hinata's classroom, as the girl is detained by a teacher who tells her off for being distracted in class, yet again, or sometimes, by a classmate who is dying to tell her something super important that can't wait until after lunchtime. If it's the latter, at least Kageyama knows that as soon as the girl in question spots her waiting outside, her scowl in place and her arms crossed over her chest, suddenly she'll remember that it wasn't such an urgent matter after all and she'll let Hinata go.

'Kageyama, you really frightened Mito with that look you gave her. She just wanted to tell me about this new CD she's got'.

'I was born with this face', she replies every single time, to Hinata's amusement. 'It's not my fault if all you classmates are airheads like you.'

Hinata hisses like an angry cat – Kageyama would know: she always gets that reaction from cats – but she forgets her indignation very easily to discuss a new move that they could try at the next practice, or to stick her nose into Kageyama's bento, as though she didn't always have more or less the same stuff for lunch almost every day.

Every now and then, though, the first thing Kageyama sees as she steps out of the classroom isn't a mop of indomitable orange hair belonging to a girl incapable of standing still, a girl who starts firing seven hundred words per minute as soon as she sees her.

Every now and then, it's a boy.

The type varies. They're usually tall, although once there was this boy who was even shorter than Noya and Hinata, that cheeky bastard, laughed for weeks.

Some of them stand serious and quiet, fear written on their faces; others wait for her with a self-satisfied smirk and wink at her. More often than not there's a gang of his friends a few steps away, whispering amongst themselves and elbowing each for some reason she can't fathom. It's for moral support Noya explained to her once. Girls do it as well when they confess to a boy.

Kageyama has never confessed or done anything of the sort to a boy, and she'd rather not have anyone confessing to her either.

Anyhow, it always turns out more or less the same way:

"Kageyama-san, I thought that maybe… you might want… eh, sit with us at lunch, maybe? Would you like that?"

"No, not really."

Or else:

"Kageyama-san, those books look awfully heavy."

"I do weight-lifting."

Or:

"Did you know, Kageyama? At the mall's cinema the sequel to Panda Warrior is on. You liked the first one, right?" A nod from Kageyama provokes a smile so wide that almost splits the boy's face in half. "Would you like to go see it this weekend?"

Kageyama tilts her head, pensive.

"Well, yeah, I would. Hinata!"

The girl, as usual in this sort of situation, stands a few steps away from them as though she were giving them some privacy, but she doesn't miss a single word. She winces at the sound of her name and does a very poor job at pretending not to have been paying attention.

"Do you want to go to the movies this Saturday, after practice?"

Afterwards, when the boy in question walks away glumly so his friends get the chance to pat his back, Hinata clucks her tongue in disapproval, as though she were her eighty-five-year-old grand-aunt.

"Kageyama, you're so mean with the boys that ask you out."

She shrugs.

"Would you rather I had lunch with any of them, instead of having extra practice with you? Or do you want to see Panda Warrior just with Natsu?"

"Well… no, of course not. But, I dunno, at least you could let them carry your books…"

"What for? I'm sure I do more weight-lifting than them."

Hinata huffs, shaking her head in a movement that almost shakes her entire body and her hair, as it's not constrained by the rubber bands and hair clips she uses during practice, splits in all directions.

"That's not the point, Bakageyama!"

(She always says it as though it were a single word, in the same way she calls her dumbass-Hinata.)

"And what's the point, genius?"

"They offer because they want to be nice to you! It's like, I don't know, cute? A boy waiting for you after class, who offers to walk you and carry your books… It's like in the movies. It means they like you."

"But I don't like them, so what does it matter?"

Hinata lets out a long-suffering sigh, like she does those times Coach Ukai tells them they ran out of meat buns at the store.

"I just know that it'd be nice if someone offered to carry my books, at least once. I need more help than you, look at my bag, it's about to burst."

"That's because you're a moron who never remembers which books she's supposed to bring and which ones not, so you always bring all of them."

"Last time I forgot a book I got detention, and I was late for practice, and Daichi almost killed me!"

"If your memory wasn't so lousy, then maybe…"

"Oh, look who's talking."

Finally, without realizing how or why, Kageyama ends up grabbing Hinata's bag. At her stunned look she snaps:

"If you're going to be such a baby to whine about it, I'll carry them for you. I'm sure I'll be faster with two bags than you with just one."

"No, you won't!"

(Hinata wins, but Kageyama insists it was just because one of the bags' straps slipped from her shoulder and she had to stop to adjust it.)

The next day, it's Hinata who snatches her bag away as soon as she steps out of her classroom.

"You won't beat me at this either, Kageyama!" she shouts over her shoulder, as she runs away with the two bags bouncing on her back. Kageyama rolls her eyes.

"Dumbass" she mumbles, before running after her.

* * *

It's bad enough when this sort of stuff happens in front of Hinata, but there's nothing as awful as the entire Karasuno team hanging from the window bars or sticking their heads through the half-open door while a boy sticks a bouquet of flowers under Kageyama's nose. She can hear some loud whistles that must come from Noya and Tanaka, and she's pretty sure that the cackling behind her back are Tsukishima and Yamaguchi, maybe also Ennoshita.

She doesn't even listen to what the boy is stammering, instead she takes a step back to prevent the flowers from sticking into her eyes, and she crosses her arms behind her back.

"No, thanks. You can keep them."

"Hey, Kageyama, don't be so mean!"

"Shut up and let her handle it herself, it's her call!"

"But it's not like the flowers are gonna bite her!"

"QUIET, OR YOU'LL RUN LAPS AROUND THE GYM UNTIL YOUR LEGS FALL OFF."

It's followed by one of those silences that would allow you to hear a pin dropping to the floor, if anyone brought pins to volleyball practice. In this case, all that can be heard is a muffled cough, most likely from Asahi who has had a cold for the entire week, followed by a thump that sounds like elbowing, and a very quiet "ouch!"

Kageyama feels her face burning, but surely not as much as the boy's in front of her, who swallows a couple of times before speaking again.

"Er, look, I… I just wanted to give you this and, er, tell you that… well, that you're very pretty."

"AWWW, ISN'T HE ADORABLE?"

"I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!"

Kageyama clenches her teeth and digs her nails into her forearms. The team is important, you can't win a volley match playing by yourself, she can't murder them all.

"But you don't have to feel forced to anything", he hastens to add, perhaps because he finally perceives the murderous aura gestating around her. "I didn't want to make you uncomfortable…"

He could have thought of that before showing up with flowers outside the gym, in front of all of her teammates.

Boys can be so stupid.

"Kageyama, don't make him suffer so much that he'll get an apoplexy!"

"Wow, I didn't know you could pronounce such a long word, are you sure you didn't hurt yourself?"

"Really, girls? Really?"

His smile starts to waver on his lips, almost as much as the hand holding the flowers, their petals starting to fall with all the shaking.

Kageyama doesn't have to turn around to know that through the door, ajar, stick out the faces of all her teammates. Well, with the exception of Noya and Tanaka: they are clinging to the window bars for a better view.

Suga-san once told her that, in such situations, it might be convenient to close her eyes and count to ten.

She counts to fifty, just in case.

"If I take the flowers, will you leave me alone?"

His jaw drops. She keeps clenching her teeth but uncrosses and stretches her arms: she was already feeling pins and needles.

"That's no way to accept a—OUCH, SUGA, THAT HURT!"

He glances beyond Kageyama, where everyone must be staring at him like a fish in a bowl and he swallows. He seems to be rethinking many things.

Being born, perhaps.

"Well, if that's what you want…"

Before he can change his mind, she snatches the bouquet from his hand.

"Thank you," she grumbles, but she does bow. He opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, gawking, and in the end, he also bows.

"Th-thanks… Er, I mean, you're welcome… er… See you later, Kageyama!"

She has two, maybe three seconds of respite between the moment his sneakers screech against the concrete, signaling his flight, and the moment she feels someone tugging on her sleeve and a familiar voice shrieks almost into her ear:

"Kageyama, you're awful. I thought he was going to burst into tears and everything. Is it that hard for you to accept some flowers? It's not like they were carnivorous!"

Hinata puts her hands on her hips and frowns at her. With her pigtails and the bright-colored hair clips she uses during practice, her cheeks red after running to her side, and her short height, she looks as threatening as a soaking-wet kitten.

Kageyama rolls her eyes.

"If you like them so much, you can keep them."

Hinata blinks several times, staring cross-eyed at the bouquet Kageyama's placed right under her nose.

"But… they're yours."

"I don't want them. You're the one that said I had to accept them, so you gotta keep them."

"Oh, Bakageyama, that's not how it works."

But she takes the bouquet, a bit battered after all the shaking, and she places it under her nose to smell it.

At once she sneezes all over it.

"Awwww, our young lady here is growing up," says a saccharine sweet voice, and when she glances down Kageyama sees Noya grabbing her arm, a proud mamma smile on her face, and two seconds later Tanaka appears at her other side.

"She already has suitors and everything. Just yesterday she was blowing off the dean's wig…"

"Don't mention that ever again!" shouts Daichi from the gym's front steps, where the rest of the team still gathers. Suga covers her mouth with her hand, but the others don't even try to smother their snickering.

Except for Tsukishima, sticking her head behind the others, who keeps her usual expression of moral superiority.

"Her Majesty doesn't like the attention from plebeians, see."

"It's not like you'd be any nicer!"

"No, of course not," she replies, looking at her nails with calculated indifference. "But at least I can save myself from this sort of embarrassment."

It's sadly true: from what Yamaguchi has told them, Tsukishima is also strangely popular amongst Karasuno's male population and yet, she never suffers this sort of public humiliation.

Hinata suggested once that was because she made sure to bury the corpses where no one could find them.

Suga steps in before things get out of hand, but Noya and Tanaka keep goofing around, ruffling her head and telling her she's such a big girl now, offering "advice" for talking to boys that she'll never put into practice.

She escapes from her team by racing Hinata to where she parked her bike. Kageyama wins and the other girl frowns and pouts. The bouquet is more battered than ever, and now even Hinata seems annoyed at it.

"I don't know why your admirers can't give you something better than flowers. Like chocolates or homemade cookies. What good is a bouquet for?"

When Kageyama suggests to her to just throw it away, she shakes her head, affronted.

"You gave it to me, and you don't throw away presents."

She throws the bouquet into her bike's basket, and Kageyama has serious doubts regarding its chances of survival, knowing at what speed her friend likes to pedal.

When she says goodbye to Hinata, and the girl beams at her, though, for the first time she reckons that perhaps flower bouquets aren't that stupid, as long as you give them to people who actually care.

* * *

It's a practice way more brutal than usual, or at least it seems that way to Kageyama, who by the end of it feels her arms and legs are like lead. She sinks on a pile of mats next to Asahi, who drinks water with a despondent look.

They're supposed to be tidying up the gym, but the coach left to take a call and instead everyone's slacking off. A crowd gathers around Noya and Tanaka, who like usual are gesticulating a lot and showing something to the others. Kageyama can't see much from where she is, but whatever it is makes Tsukishima put distance between them, closely followed, like always, by Yamaguchi.

"Hey, girls, don't be like that," Noya shouts after them. "Don't you see we're trying to teach you valuable life lessons?"

She shakes something in her hand – a bright-colored magazine. Kageyama perks up, is it Volleyball Montly's latest issue…?

To her disappointment, what she manages to glimpse makes her recoil: Cosmopolitan.

(One summertime afternoon her cousins insisted that she stopped practicing for a while so she went sunbathing with them, and they spent the whole time reading that magazine. It's on her Top Ten of traumatic memories.)

"No, thanks," replies Tsukishima. "It's been verified that merely flipping that magazine's pages annihilates your neuronal capacity."

Yamaguchi settles at Asahi's other side, maybe because between the two tallest girls on the team she feels safe against an oncoming attack from Noya and Tanaka.

She should've known there would be no escape: they start to read loud enough for their voices to reverberate in the entire gym.

"How can you get that boy to notice you: the do's and don'ts of a successful seduction."

"Tanaka, where did you get this crap? Tell me you didn't pay for it."

"No way. My brother's girlfriend left it at home… well, actually, his ex."

"…no wonder she's an ex."

Noya keeps reading at top of her lungs, unperturbed.

"Have you ever wondered why some girls seem to get all the attention every time they go out and then there are others that are always left empty-handed, no matter how hard they try? Cosmo is here to tell you which steps you must follow to turn into the greatest seductress and which you must avoid at all costs. Hey, Tanaka, you read the do's columns and I'll read the don'ts."

Kageyama tears her gaze away from her shoelaces and looks up. Could it be that she'll find, in a Cosmopolitan, the way to get rid of pestering boys once and for all?

It sounds too good to be true.

"Do: make a seductive pose, sticking out your bosom a bit, but in a subtle manner."

"Don't: No squishing his face against your breasts!"

There's a collective roar of laughter that tears Daichi and Suga from their private conversation, which had kept them immersed at the opposite end of the gym. They glance back at the group of girls, but apparently it's enough to make sure no one is setting anything on fire to decide to go back to their conversation and ignore everyone else.

"Do: write your phone number down on a napkin and pass it to him discreetly."

"Don't: write your number on his thigh."

No, that magazine definitely won't help Kageyama.

"But who the hell would do that? What sort of person do they write this stuff for?"

Tanaka and Noya laugh at Ennoshita's indignant look.

"A girl does what she must to get the attention of the boy she fancies, Ennoshita, c'mon."

Hinata gapes at them, confused.

"But, I thought this was what you don't have to do…"

"Oh my God," mutters Tsukishima, in a perfectly audible way. "They'll end up burning to a crisp the few brain cells she has left."

Kageyama glares at her, but deep inside she fears it might be true: Hinata often believes that everything Tanaka and Noya do is cool and she tends to imitate them.

"Do:," Tanaka continues, still choking with laughter. "Look at him intently with bedroom eyes while you drink seductively."

Noya ducks her head to keep reading but whatever comes next provokes a hysterical fit of laughter and soon Tanaka joins her, tears rolling down her cheeks. Ennoshita stares at them, with her arms crossed over her chest, as though she were judging every single decision in their lives.

"D-do-don't," reads Noya, laughing and hiccuping. "Look at him intently with bedroom eyes w-while y-you… you rub an ice cube all over your cleavage!"

They end up rolling down the floor, shaking with laughter, the magazine forgotten on the floor. Tsukishima shakes her head and Yamaguchi stares at them, wide-eyed. Even Hinata takes a step backwards.

The scene could last for a while because Daichi, whispering in Suga's ear, doesn't seem willing to intervene yet, but then the gym's door opens and the girls jump to their feet, their faces suddenly serious.

It's not Ukai, though, which sends a wave of general relief, but Shimizu. He is a bit bewildered when everyone seems to be staring at him, but at this point he must be used to Karasuno's team's weirdness because he recovers quickly and ignores them all.

Shimizu is one of the few boys that Kageyama can put up with, probably because he almost doesn't speak to her at all; and when he does, it's always volleyball-related.

Tanaka and Noya exchange a glance and they elbow each other in the ribs. Kageyama is aware that she isn't the world's most perceptive person, but even she gets a bad feeling about it. Her uneasiness is solidified by Asahi's quiet oh, no when she sees the two girls make a beeline towards Shimizu, who is distracted as he looks for something in his bag.

"Shimizu-kun, what a sight for sore eyes," Tanaka exclaims, in a tone that might try to sound saccharine sweet but turns out a bit creepy instead. When Shimizu glances up to frown at her, she puts her hands on her hips and exaggeratedly sticks out her chest and her butt, which makes her look like a duck.

Noya on the other hand cocks her head, a huge grin on her face. She looks at him with half-closed eyes and begins to twirl a lock of hair. Well, she tries to: there's so much gel on her hair that it isn't very malleable and she has to desist.

"You're getting more and more handsome, you know?"

Daichi and Suga are finally paying attention to their team's idiotic antics. The former scowls, which is always a bad sign, whereas Suga shakes her head, as though she were little by little losing her faith in humankind. Hinata, she notices with some relief, looks more bewildered than awed. Ennoshita hides her face behind her hands when Tanaka grabs an energy drink and starts to drink while striking a pose, as though she were in a beer ad, her eyes never leaving Shimizu's. The boy has an indecipherable expression and Kageyama, who still remembers in horror the episode with the flowers, feels enough pity for him to look away. Next to her, Asahi's face looks like a tomato, but she doesn't seem to be able to tear her gaze away from the horror of Noya's and Tanaka's attempts at seduction.

Yamaguchi's gaze goes from the girls to Asahi, and then back to them a few times, her eyes very round. Kageyama thinks that her face looks the way she herself usually feels when the Math teacher fills the blackboard with formulas that could be written in Ancient Greek for all she manages to understand them.

"Doesn't it bother you?"

Asahi winces and stares at Yamaguchi. The girl seems to regret at once opening her mouth at all, because she raises her hands as if to defend herself.

"I m-mean, it's none of my business, obviously, but…" She glances at Tsukishima, as though she expected her to rescue her. Don't hold your breath, thinks Kageyama: the other girl seems mesmerized by her long blonde plait, while her friend drowns in her own stammering. "It's just, well, right in front of you, and all that, and never mind, forget I said anything. Please, don't get mad."

Asahi looks just as uncomfortable as Yamaguchi and her face becomes redder if possible.

"N-no, I'm not mad. And it's not… I mean, I know she doesn't…" She gestures vaguely in Noya, Tanaka and Shimizu's direction. "It's just a joke, you know? And sure, I get second-hand embarrassment because, well, it would be impossible for me not to, but it's not… It's not like that. You know?"

Perhaps it's Kageyama, but between the blushing and Asahi's and Yamaguchi's stammering, she gets the impression that there are more blanks in that conversation than in her last English quiz.

Yamaguchi herself doesn't seem to understand much better than Kageyama, but maybe that's just her usual expression.

"Girls, leave Shimizu alone and start to clean up before Ukai comes back to close the gym."

The entire team rushes to obey Daichi, because in a way the captain is much scarier than the coach. They're far from finishing when Ukai comes back and starts yelling but what have you lot being doing all this time? and Noya in absolute seriousness replies teaching valuable life lessons and Tanaka almost chokes.

Kageyama and Hinata compete to see who manages to mop faster and gather the largest number of balls, so they're the last ones to get into the club room. Nearly everyone is gone except for Asahi, still wearing her volleyball uniform. She doesn't even look up when they get in: she's too focused scrubbing her leg with a bit of wet toilet paper. Hinata and Kageyama exchange a glance and in mutual agreement they approach her to see what's going on.

"Are you hurt or something?"

It's not a cut or a bruise that Asahi's got on her thigh, though, but four words scribbled in black ink:

You've got my number.

"I'm gonna kill her," she groans, as she scrubs with growing desperation. "The moron used permanent ink."

"Try nail polish remover," Hinata suggests. "That time I wrote the answers for a History exam on my arm and then I couldn't wash it off, my mom used that to get it off. And then she grounded me for a month, of course."

Kageyama smacks her on the back of her head, because she couldn't be more stupid even if she tried.


	2. 2 The suitor

Yoshida-sensei holds her back once the bell rings, a scowl on her face, like every single time she speaks to Kageyama. When the teacher shows her the latest English assignment she turned in, all of it covered in red ink, Kageyama is not that surprised.

"Kageyama, you can't keep making the same mistakes over and over again, this is really elementary stuff. We're already on the Simple Past and you still struggle with the Simple Present."

The lecture goes on for a bit longer, but at this point it sounds all so familiar that she knows to nod at the right times. She hopes Yoshida doesn't keep her for long or she'll be late for practice.

At long last, when Kageyama is already picturing Daichi's furious look, the teacher sighs – she does that a lot while talking to her – and lets her go.

She's not surprised to find Hinata waiting for her, shifting her body weight from one foot to the other, as per usual. A little less usual is that she doesn't make a fuss over how long she's had to wait as soon as she sees her. She just says "hi, Kageyama!" like always, but it's not followed by the usual two hundred questions and ever-running commentary. Now that she pays a little more of attention, Hinata seems kind of nervous, throwing glances at her side. Kageyama follows her gaze and finds a boy, taller than Hinata – not really an accomplishment – but a little shorter than herself, and who looks like he's waiting for something.

Kageyama grinds her teeth: after the episode with the flowers she has little patience left for this sort of thing. The boy tenses up at her glare, but he manages to make his lips curve in a polite smile that doesn't look too forced.

"You must be Kageyama-san: Hinata talks a lot about you."

Kageyama turns towards the girl and something about her expression makes her to widen her eyes and raise her hands defensively.

"Don't look at me like that, I didn't say anything bad! Well, almost, but that's your fault for having such a horrid temper…"

Kageyama is going to reply, but then she notices something: Hinata isn't carrying anything. Neither her books, nor her gym bag with her volleyball uniform. She's about to ask if she's really so stupid as to forget everything at the classroom, when she realizes where her friend's stuff is: the boy is carrying them. She stares at him again, but this time feels as though she were seeing him for the first time. Why does he have Hinata's stuff?

As though she could read her mind, Hinata clears her throat:

"Kageyama, this is Matsuo. Matsuo Akio. He sits three seats behind me in class. He said my things looked very heavy, so he offered to carry them for me. Isn't that super nice of him?"

She beams at him, in that way that's so Hinata-like, and a pink blush starts to creep up the boy's neck until it reaches his acne-sprinkled forehead.

Kageyama feels very annoyed all of a sudden.

"We gotta go or Daichi'll be mad."

"Hey, I'm the one who had to wait for you…"

Hinata chooses to shut her mouth when she sees the look on her face and instead says to the boy:

"Thank you so much, Matsuo."

She holds out her hand so he hands over her stuff, but he bites his lip.

"Wouldn't you rather I carried them to the gym? So you don't get tired before practice."

Hinata is somewhat dumbfounded.

"I guess… I mean, if you don't mind…"

"Not at all," he replies way too quickly and Kageyama glares at him. It was her turn to carry Hinata's stuff, but the girl doesn't seem to remember it at the moment, too preoccupied smiling at what's-his-name.

Daichi is waiting for them at the gym's front steps, her arms crossed over her chest and a frown on her face, which disappears and turns into a puzzled expression when she sees they've got company.

"Kageyama," she begins, in a voice that might be surprised, horrified or maybe just incredulous, "are you… are you letting a boy carry your stuff?"

"No."

Hinata gets a little red-faced.

"Actually, Matsuo here," she waves at him, "offered to carry my stuff for me."

Daichi blinks a few times.

"Oh! How… how nice of him." She pushes her fingers through her hair and leaves it sticking in all directions. "Now we have to start practice anyway, so hurry up."

Hinata and the boy get the bags' straps tangled when he tries to hand them over. Kageyama huffs and ends up grabbing the gym bag and hanging it over her shoulder. She turns when she reaches the door to glance at Hinata, who remains stiff like a pole next to the boy.

"Are you coming?"

"Oh, sure! Eh, thanks a lot, Matsuo. It was very… nice of you."

He rubs the back of his neck, ruffling his brown curls.

"Oh, it was nothing. We… we'll see each other tomorrow, right?"

Hinata seems somewhat confused.

"Well… yeah, there's school tomorrow so…"

If it were an isolated incident, it'd be one thing. But by the time she realizes it, every day of the week that Hinata is waiting for her after class there he is as well, carrying her bag. Those times when it's Kageyama who has to wait for her, she always leaves the classroom with him right on her heels, as the rest of her classmates watch the scene giggling and nudging each other, more air-headed than ever.

He always insists on carrying Hinata's stuff, so every other day the girl insists on carrying Kageyama's stuff, because I won't give you that advantage.

Hinata's that much of an idiot.

It's not long before the news reaches the volleyball club.

"HINATA, YOU'VE GOT A SUITOR?"

"AND YOU DIDN'T TELL YOUR SENPAIS?"

Noya and Tanaka's bellowing reach loud and clear to where Hinata and her personal book-carrier are standing, and both turn tomato red. He stammers something as goodbye and flees before the Karasuno team can descend on him like a murder of crows.

"Ahhh… he didn't have to leave so fast! We wanted to meet him."

"…how come you expected him not to flee?" Sugawara wonders. The girls ignore her and each one of them grabs Hinata by an arm.

"Where do you know him from?"

"Which class is he in?"

"What's his name?"

"Does he play volley?"

"Has this been going on for long?"

"Do you even need to breathe? If you want her to answer, let her talk!"

Getting redder and redder, Hinata starts to answer, stammering and stuttering. She doesn't say anything that Kageyama doesn't already know: there's not much to say about the boy, he doesn't even play volleyball.

"But he saw our last match and he said I was amazing."

Hinata sounds awed and Tanaka and Noya both let out an awwww. Kageyama rolls her eyes: as though she never told Hinata when she plays particularly well.

"And then he offered to carry my stuff and I said yes."

"Oh, that's so cute," says Tsukishima in a high-pitched voice. Kageyama doesn't realize why it sounds familiar until she notices that she's imitating Miss Trunchbull on Matilda. "Can we get on with the practice or are we going on with the mass murder by boredom?"

"Tsukishima, don't be like that. It's an important milestone: our little kouhai is growing up. We have to give her our advice—"

"On what, if neither of you have a boyfriend?" asks Ennoshita, and in that moment Daichi intervenes, yelling to start warming up already.

Noya and Tanaka don't forget about it, of course. They have a lot more questions, some of them so awkward that they make Hinata blush, and some advice that sounds worse than anything Cosmpolitan could print.

But there's not much else to tell: Matsuo keeps carrying Hinata's stuff as she and Kageyama take turns with the latter's bag, and he speaks very little. He prefers letting Hinata carry the whole conversation in almost a monologue, and he watches each one of her gestures and quirks in utter fascination, as though he wanted to memorize them all.

It annoys Kageyama so much. The first time she scowls when the girls are pestering Hinata with questions about him, though, Tanaka asks her if she's jealous because her friend has a boyfriend, and Tsukishima snickers, so she's very careful to keep her expression as neutral as possible.

Of course, according to Hinata, her most neutral expression makes her look like she's plotting mass murder.

"I'm going to do awful on our next English quiz, I just know it," Hinata is saying with a tragic demeanor one afternoon as the three of them walk towards the gym. "I don't understand a single thing and I think Yoshida-sensei has given up on me, because she doesn't even tell me off anymore, that's how bad it's gotten. I'm gonna end up failing and I'll have to go to remedial lessons, and if I miss practice because of that I'll kill myself."

"No, Daichi will do that for you."

"Don't laugh, Bakageyama; you're just as bad as I am!"

They start to bicker like always, and at times like this it's easy to forget, it's too easy to believe that nothing has changed.

The illusion doesn't last long.

Matsuo clears his throat softly, and then he does it again a couple more times a little louder, until he gets their attention.

"I… I could help you. I'm good at English. I got 92 on the last quiz."

Hinata and Kageyama stop in their tracks to gawk at him. Only Tsukishima can show off those sort of grades so carelessly.

"Wow, that's great!" Hinata exclaims. "And how do you do at Math?"

Matsuo wrinkles his nose and shakes his head.

"Not so well, I got 68."

That's a way higher grade than either of them has achieved, but for once Hinata has the good sense to keep her mouth shut about it.

"Oh, well, it doesn't matter. Kenma can keep explaining it to us on Skype. Are you sure you wouldn't mind helping us with English?"

"Us?"

"Yeah, Bakageyama; if you end up taking remedial lessons, who'll toss to me?"

That's how the three of them end up spending half of their lunchtime at the library, and they must sacrifice their private training sessions. Hinata pouts and huffs like a five-year-old, until Kageyama reminds her that it was her idea in the first place and if they end up in remedial lessons, then they'll miss the actual practice.

If Matsuo is bothered by Kageyama's presence, he's much better at hiding it than she is.

He also shows a lot more patience than their teacher at their chronic uselessness for foreign languages (chronic uselessness in general, Tsukishima calls it, but that's a stingy one that gets top marks at everything). He's been repeating "he, she, it" as a mantra for three days straight and he doesn't seem to be getting tired. Kageyama honestly doesn't understand why they need to learn English if they're all Japanese, but then she remembers the looming threat of remedial lessons and she repeats once more: "he, she, it go with a final S, unless does goes ahead" and she tries to brand it on her memory, once and for all.

It doesn't help that Hinata is unable to sit still for five full minutes: she has already kicked both their chairs more than once, she's dropped the pen on the floor about five times, and even the book once. The glowering from the librarian is getting worse by the minute. A part of Kageyama feels a bit of second-half embarrassment; another part of her is silently praying for the librarian to kick them out so this torture ends at last.

When Matsuo says there is a book of exercises that might help them, no one is surprised when Hinata is the first one to jump to her feet and offer to look for it. As she leaves, almost running away, the silence seems to become much heavier. Matsuo opens his mouth a few times, and then he pretends to yawn or cough and closes it again. Kageyama doesn't even bother to make an attempt at conversation.

Minutes pass and Hinata, the moron, doesn't come back.

"I'm going to look for that dumbass, she might've gotten lost and everything."

Matsuo scrunches up his nose, as though he were to argue the "dumbass" bit, but he seems to think better of it.

"I'll go with you."

(Kageyama has to bite on her tongue so she doesn't snap I don't need you, because he clearly isn't doing this for her).

When they find her, Kageyama snorts. Hinata is standing on her tiptoes in front of a bookcase, her legs and arms as stretched as possible, a look of absolute focus on her face, as though it were merely a matter of will to overcome those few centimeters she lacks. Of course she didn't think of getting a stool or asking someone for help, that'd be too much to expect.

She shakes her head at her level of sheer, chronic stupidity. Matsuo, on the other hand, watches her with his head turned slightly sideways, a smile on his thin lips. Then he takes a step forward and the scene plays out in Kageyama's mind in black and white like the panels of a manga: Matsuo approaching Hinata, stretching from behind her to get the book, she turns around, stuck between him and the bookcase, she looks up, blushes as she thanks him for the book, both of them smiling like idiots.

Kageyama's hand shoots out to grab his shoulder and stop him.

"I'll get it for her, I'm taller than you."

"But…"

In three strides Kageyama gets behind Hinata and she barely has to stretch her arm to grab the book.

"What…?" begins Hinata, sounding indignant, as she turns around and her eyes meet Kageyama's, who is waving the book in her hand. Hinata huffs.

"I had it already."

"Sure you did."

From so close, she has to throw her head backwards to be able to look her in the eye. Kageyama notices that her neck looks longer that way.

She also has her bow undone.

"Here," she says, throwing the book at her, and she ties the bow on her neck again, as Hinata, in a great display of maturity, sticks out her tongue at her.

* * *

They barely pass their English test, but both of them believe that they've already lost enough of their private training sessions, and anyway, it's ages before the next test, they'll worry about it when the time comes. That is until Matsuo comes up with the brilliant idea of going over his English notes as they eat their lunch, so they can use the rest of lunchtime for practice. It's a better arrangement because the torture doesn't last as long and they don't have to go to the library, but it also means they no longer have lunch just the two of them, as usual.

Kageyama feels vexed without knowing very well the reason. It's not like anything changes that much just because the boy is now there: they keep sitting next to each other, Hinata keeps trying to steal sips from her juice box as Kageyama snatches part of her bento in revenge, Hinata keeps blabbering and gesturing almost non-stop and wolfing down her food like a five-year-old. Matsuo only dares to interrupt every now and then to recite out loud the Simple Past's irregular verbs, which they try to repeat without much success. It's so annoying that the verbs change so much from present to past tense. How does one go from goes to went? They don't resemble each other at all.

"Japanese is a language much more difficult to learn for foreigners than English," he tells them and Hinata shrugs.

"Yeah, but we already know Japanese."

She has a grain of rice on her cheek because she's incapable of eating like a regular person, and Kageyama's hand is reaching out to brush it off, like always, but this time, he gets there first. When his hand brushes Hinata's skin she turns the same color as Nekoma's uniform and so does he.

"I'm so-sorry. It's just, there was a bit of rice on your face and…"

"Oh, no, don't worry, it happens all the time. I mean, er, thanks."

Kageyama jumps to her feet.

"Shall we go? Lunchtime will be over and we haven't practiced yet."

He frowns.

"Won't it be bad for you, without waiting for your digestion to be over and all that?"

"Nah, we're used to it." Hinata replies, as she gathers all her stuff in the blink of an eye and starts to tug on Kageyama's sleeve. "C'mon, I want to practice that new spike before today's practice."

"It's not me who is slowing us down but you…"

"I bet you can't get there before me!"

"You cheating…!"

* * *

Then begins what, in the following years, the Karasuno team will call the Flower Week. It starts, like many other things, in an innocuous manner: one day Matsuo is waiting for Hinata and clutching a small bouquet of jasmine flowers in his hands. The girl stops dead on her tracks, gaping at the flowers, as though they were an alien species never seen before.

"They… they're for me?"

He nods, and Kageyama notes that when he blushes the pimples on his forehead stand out a lot more.

"If you like them…"

"I love them!" Hinata nearly squeaks, snatching them from his hands as though she feared he might change his mind. She jumps up and down all the way to the gym while smelling the flowers. At least this time she doesn't sneeze all over them.

When they see her come in with the bouquet the entire team surrounds Hinata, with the exception of Tsukishima, who keeps her distance, and Yamaguchi, who stands uncertain somewhere halfway.

"Oh, they're so pretty," says Narita, getting closer to smell them, and the others either sigh or nod in approval, whereas Tanaka pats Hinata's shoulder so hard she nearly dislocates it.

"That's the way to go, Hinata! He's totally smitten."

"It must be nice, getting flowers" Asahi says dreamily. Noya looks at her with raised eyebrows.

"I thought you were allergic."

"Well… yeah," she admits. "But it's the gesture, you know?"

"The gesture of giving you something that will make you sneeze non-stop?" Suga-san asks.

"No, not that, but to get something nice."

For some reason Sugawara looks at Noya, who shrugs as if saying "what?"

"Oh, I think the only man who ever gave me flowers was my granddad," Kinoshita bemoans. Tanaka lets out a melodramatic sigh.

"There's no two ways about it: we need to do something to get a guy."

"How will we do that, if we spend all our time playing volleyball amongst girls? Even when we get out of school, where do we go? To play volley against other girls."

"Look, if Hinata, who is the most volleyball-obsessed of us all apart from Kageyama…"

"…who also got flowers, in case you don't remember…"

"Girls, embrace it already: it's not volleyball that's the issue, it's you."

Kageyama is profoundly grateful when Ukai gets there to yell at them to begin practice at once. Although even she approaches Hinata to congratulate her.

"Though…" She frowns. "What're you going to do with the flowers during practice?"

It becomes obvious that Hinata hasn't thought about tha, given the look on her face, glancing around as though she expects a vase to magically appear before her, until Shimizu takes pity on her and cuts the top of a bottle to put the flowers into water.

Once practice begins no one talks about flowers or boys, and Hinata keeps running after the ball and shouting one more time! at Kageyama, as though there was no Matsuo Akio in the world.

The next day it's daisies. The following one, some sort of small sunflowers. On Wednesday, some colorful flowers that Narita identifies as freesias, and on Thursday, red carnations, followed by some unidentified blue flowers.

By the end of the week Hinata's initial enthusiasm has turned into something very similar to desperation.

"What am I supposed to do with all these flowers? I've already ran out of vases and pots, I've started to use jars and tall glasses but Mom isn't very happy about that, and the flowers don't die fast enough to make room for others!"

"Throw them away," Kageyama suggests, mercilessly.

"You don't throw away presents! Hey, would you like…?"

"No."

If she didn't keep the flowers meant for her, she wants the ones given to Hinata even less.

The girl sighs, throwing the latest bouquet in the bike's basket. She no longer cares that much for its physical integrity.

"I don't know why boys can't give away candy, or garigari-kuns, or meat buns. Girls give homemade cookies to boys, I'd settle with store-bought ones!"

Kageyama rolls her eyes, because she could just go and buy the cookies herself.

But the following day, Kageyama takes to school a tupper with her grandmother's brownies leftovers, and when she offers them to Hinata after lunch, the girl throws her arms around her neck.

"You're the best!"

From that moment onwards, Matsuo gives up on flower bouquets and trades them for garigari-kuns, which might be less romantic, but end up being much more appreciated.


	3. 3 Love so strong it takes control

After the flowers, it's the notes turn.

The ones they exchange in class, and that earn Hinata more than a lecture from the teachers, she doesn't show to her: that's what the airheads of her classmates are for, always willing to sigh and giggle.

But the boy doesn't stop at notes scribbled on a piece of paper torn from a school notebook. Instead he starts to leave, in Hinata's gym bag for her to find afterwards, little notes written with neat calligraphy on heart-shaped red paper.

Tsukishima's face when Hinata gets out of her bag the first one of these notes is, in Tanaka's words, a poem.

"But does this boy read shoujo or what?"

"Noooo, he told me he's into Attack on Titan…"

The others gather around Hinata to read the card over her shoulder in the most shameless way possible and Noya even starts to read out loud.

"Did you know love is like Math? Because it's plus love, minus hate, for all our lives divided between me and you."

"…like Math?" Hinata mumbles, scrunching up her nose, like when she finds pickles in Kageyama's bento. Suga smiles at her indulgently.

"It's a metaphor, Hinata, he doesn't mean it literally, you don't have to look so scared. It's… sweet, I guess. Right?"

Hinata seems reassured as the others ruffle her hair or pat her shoulder, Tanaka and Noya congratulating her on her conquest.

Tsukishima mimics throwing up and Kageyama will never admit it out loud, but it reflects her feelings accurately.

Another card reads I'll only stop loving you the day an artist paints the sound of a falling teardrop…, to which Tsukishima comments:

"Let's make a bet whether he got it from one of those cards they sell at supermarkets, shall we?"

"Of course not! Just so you know, Matsuo gets very good grades in Japanese Literature."

"Coming from you that doesn't tell me much…"

She places a hand on Hinata's forehead when the girl tries to hit her, keeping her at a distance with her long stretched arm, as she uses her free hand to pretend she's covering her yawning. Kageyma not so accidentally ends up hitting her on the back with a ball, because she can only watch Hinata make a fool of herself for a limited amount of time.

Hinata is reluctant to show them the following card because she doesn't want to hear Tsukishima's jibes (as if I wanted to read your stupid card, dumbass and this time, Kageyama hits her with a ball for stealing her insult), but they end up talking her into it.

"If my blood was ink and my heart an ink bottle, with the tip of my blood I'd write I love you."

These words are followed by a stunned silence as the girls exchange confused glances.

"Alright," says Tsukishima, with that smirk she knows sets both Hinata and Kageyama on edge. "Maybe he is into Attack on Titan. Or perhaps into Hannibal: he hasn't sent you any poems on eating out your heart or…?"

"Shut your mouth, Tsukishima! It's… poetry, you just don't get it."

"Neither do you."

"Are we going to train or what?" Kageyama snaps, her hands on her hips, because she can't keep hitting Tsukishima with the ball without infuriating Daichi. The blonde, as usual, doesn't seem that impressed by her blistering tone, but Hinata jumps like a coiled spring.

"Yes, yes, let's go!"

The card is left momentarily forgotten on the floor when the girl runs in search of a ball. Kageyama is tempted to kick the blasted card, but instead she grabs it by a corner, touching it as little as possible as though it were toxic, and lets it fall on top of Hinata's stuff. Tsukishima clucks her tongue and rolls her eyes, but for once she refrains from opening her mouth.

Later, because he doesn't seem to know who he's dealing with (or because he's ran out of supermarket cards), the cards start to come with phrases in English.

Hinata, needless to say, is quite bewildered.

"I don't understand anything. What does this mean?"

The girls pass each other the card and try to translate it with more or less certainty. Noya suggests turning to Google's translator and the end result is more confusing than ever: Tarzan would've written it way better. In the end, Yamaguchi is the one who manages a more or less passable translation, while Tsukishima keeps her nose in the air and twirls her long braid in the most annoyed demeanor possible.

"Anyway, I think these are song lyrics," Yamaguchi tells Hinata when she hands the second card over to her. "If you look them up online you'll probably find one of those sites that explain the meaning of the songs and such."

"Thank you, Yamaguchi!"

The girl blushes a little underneath her freckles. Tsukishima snorts, still refusing to look at any of them.

"Aren't you showing way too much interest in this idiocy?"

Yamaguchi ruffles her own hair, leaving it messier than usual.

"I don't know. It's nice, isn't it? Someone making the effort to write you something pretty, it's kinda romantic…"

Now Tsukishima does look at her.

As though she had grown three extra heads.

Yamaguchi turns very pale.

"Ehhh, I-I mean… Well, I… I'm sorry, Tsukki."

That day after practice Hinata drags Kageyama to her house, after promising an extra slice of her mother's cake, and they search the words of the latest card online.

It's a verse from a High School Musical song.

Hinata stares at her, her head cocked to the side and the knuckles holding the mouse absolutely white.

"Swear to me you'll never tell Tsukishima. Or the back of your head will never be safe again."

"You wouldn't dare to hit me again, you're still too traumatized after the last time."

She gets a pillow to her face and they end up roughhousing and rolling on the bedroom's floor until Hinata's mother knocks on the door. Hinata, the cheating bastard, takes advantage of her distraction to traitorously attack her and she ends up sitting on top of Kageyama, holding her wrists against the floor.

"Sw-swear… swear it to me," she pants, her red face very close to hers, her brown eyes aflame with anger. "Swear to me you'll never tell Tsukishima."

She could push her off, she's still stronger than her even though Hinata is using the whole weight of her small body against her, but instead she just snorts and nods.

"As if I'd give her the satisfaction, moron. She'd laugh at you for months."

It'll never cease to amaze her how Hinata's face can change so suddenly: her anger vanishes with a glowing smile on her lips, like a darkened sky suddenly opening up with the sun bursting through the clouds.

(Perhaps Kageyama has been reading too many of those stupid quotes, she can feel they're affecting her).

"Thanks, Kageyama!"

Instead of getting off her, she lets herself fall on top of Kageyama to wrap her arms around her neck.

"Ouch, dumbass, you head-butted me!"

Someone – and if Kageyama ever finds out their identity, she'll get her payback – convinces Hinata that she must answer Matuo's cards with some of her own.

Hinata is atrocious at craftsmanship, of course.

Unexpectedly, it's Noya who comes into her rescue.

"I got a book on origami a short while ago," she tells them, "and I learnt a bunch of stuff. Paper flowers are my specialty."

And indeed, in an incomprehensible way she manages to produce a small bouquet of red paper flowers that look like the carnations Hinata got. The girl gapes, open-mouthed and her eyes sparkling with admiration.

"Noya-senpai, you're awesome. Is there anything you can't do?"

"Pass her exams," Ennoshita mutters and Noya elbows her unashamedly.

Soon it's clear that flower bouquets are way beyond Hinata's skill level, who already has a hard time cutting heart shapes, no matter how many times Noya explains that she just has to fold the paper and cut it in the shape of a teardrop.

(At last she ends up cutting them herself, after Hinata managed to get any shape but a heart).

There's still the tiny detail of filling the card, of course.

"You just have to write whatever comes from your heart." Asahi says with unusual conviction. Hinata stares.

"…like what? Because thanks for always carrying my stuff and explaining English to me, it's very sweet doesn't sound, I don't know, very poetic."

"Ehhh, weeeell, I don't know, you'll figure it out…"

Yamaguchi shrugs.

"Why don't you do as he did and pick a verse from a romantic song you like?"

Hinata's face lights up. Kageyama hides hers behind her hands because she knows her musical taste. It's awful.

Although after the High School Musical thing, it's not like that boy has any right to judge.

Before daring to give it to him, Hinata shows her the card. She bought a pen with gold-colored ink for the occasion and made an effort to make her penmanship as pretty as possible.

Deep in my soul  
Love so strong  
It takes control  
You've reached the deepest part  
Of the secret in my heart  
I've known it from the start  
My only love

Kageyama keeps staring at it, frowning. It sounds strangely familiar, but she can't quite put her finger on it.

Yamaguchi chokes with her own laughter, which she tries to hide unsuccessfully behind a very fake cough.

"Is it… is it a Sailor Moon song?"

Hinata turns red up to her hairline.

"It's romantic!"

"Well, at least now you'll know for sure whether he's into shoujo or not…"

"He's not into shoujo, Tsukishima!"

The girl laughs right in her face in a very annoying way.

Why do they keep bothering to talk to her outside the court?

"Maybe you should try using lyrics in English. So it's less obvious the cheesy – I mean, so it's less recognizable."

Kageyama and Hinata exchange a look, because with their combined knowledge of English this is a recipe for disaster. Hinata looks at her card and sighs. She ends up scrunching it up and throwing it on the floor.

"My handwriting came out kinda wobbly anyway, I can't write without lines. Oi!" she suddenly pipes up, grabbing Kageyama's arm. "Could you write down the next card for me? Your handwriting is prettier than mine."

"What…? No, why would I…? Where did you get the idea my handwriting is better than yours?"

Hinata snorts.

"It's obvious: you've got much prettier hands than mine, you must have better handwriting."

There's a leap of logic there that no one apart from Hinata can follow, but Kageyama can't keep turning it around her head because the girl's fingers slide down her arm, leaving goosebumps in their wake, to take her hand in hers. Kageyama's fingers look very long against Hinata's small ones. She could close her hand around hers without trouble.

"See? Your hands are prettier."

Kageyama blinks. No one has ever told her that she had pretty hands. She knows they have calluses and they're coarse because of the ball, her mother keeps telling her to use hand lotion. She keeps her nails very short and even though she uses clear nail polish, that's more to prevent them from breaking than for aesthetics. Besides, her hands are big. Hinata's, instead, look small and delicate even though they have the same calluses as hers and they're always so warm.

"Pathetic."

In perfect synchrony, both of them look up and glare at Tsukishima, whose presence Kageyama had completely forgotten about.

"On top of it all, you're helping her with this idiocy?"

Before she can reply Hinata sits upright, puffing up her cheeks.

"She's doing it because she's a good friend," she says, although Kageyama's never agreed to help her out. She nods anyway, because that's what Tanaka-senpai told her when this whole thing began (you have to be a good friend for Hinata even if she has a boyfriend now) and what she's been repeating to herself as a mantra ever since. "Wouldn't you do the same for Yamaguchi?"

Yamaguchi appears to choke on air, her eyes about to fly out of its sockets, whereas Tsukishima raises her eyebrows so much they threaten to disappear into her hairline.

"No, I wouldn't."

Hinata's jaw falls open and for once, she's left speechless.

Kageyama feels quite confused and she frowns – more than usual.

"But, wouldn't that make you a bad friend…?"

The disdain the girl throws in her direction feels like a slap to the face.

"No, it just makes me smarter than you. Yamaguchi, are you still breathing?"

"Ye-yeah, Tsukki!"

"Let's go, I'm afraid that prolonged exposure might be detrimental."

Hinata eventually recovers enough to rant on Tsukishima's attitude, because she's horrible, because sometimes I forget, but she's truly horrible but their break is over and they return to the court. Later Kageyama finds, in a corner on the floor, the ball of red paper. She straightens it out absent-mindedly and puts it in her pocket, without knowing very well why.

She always liked Sailor Moon as a child.

The following day Tsukishima approaches them beaming – scary – and says that she's thought better of it and Hinata is such a lost cause that it'd be truly immoral not to lend her a hand. She has the perfect quote for the card.

"It's in French. That way he'll think you're really sophisticated… that is, until you open your mouth again in front of him."

She gives her a piece of paper written with perfect penmanship (she hates her so much). Hinata and Kageyama exchange glances: none of them trust her good intentions at all.

Unfortunately, no one on the team knows French. They're about to try with Google's translator and come what may, until Ennoshita asks them to see the piece of paper. She reads it quickly and Ennoshita, always so placid, so stoic, almost expressionless, bursts into hysterical laughter.

They have to wait like ten minutes before she calms down.

"Please, tell me you didn't give that Matsuo guy this note."

"No, we wanted to check first…"

"It was Tsukishima, right?" More laughter. "Oh my God, that girl is evil."

That part at least is no news to them.

"Vous voulez coucher avec moi ce soir ? is from a Moulin Rouge song, you didn't watch that movie?"

Still snickering, she tells them its meaning. Hinata pales and Kageyama feels her hands clenching into fists. She's going to kill her. If Matsuo had read it…

Ennoshita dries the tears in her eyes.

"At least, now you've got something you can use against her." At her puzzled looks she smirks. "Tsukishima is into romantic musicals…"

(When they confront her, Tsukishima denies it vehemently, saying it's her sister who's the one who likes them. Hinata clucks her tongue.

"That's like when I say that I watch Ben 10 because of Natsu, duh.")

At the end, the only reasonable voice is Daichi's.

"I don't think I know any guy who'd like to get heart-shaped cards… It's one thing for him to send them, but if he pulls out one of those cards in class, all of his friends are going to laugh in his face, don't you think?"

Hinata looks like a huge weight has been lifted off her shoulders.

"That's it, I'll get him a garigari-kun."

* * *

She'd like to say that her boy troubles start and end with putting up with the stupid face Matsuo makes when dumbass Hinata smiles at him, but just because there's one boy who has set his sights on her friend it doesn't mean that all the rest have left her alone. They still approach her outside her classroom to offer carrying her books, and she keeps refusing with her usual annoyance.

Sometimes Hinata beats her to it and beams beatifically at the boy in question.

"It can't be, it's my turn to carry Kageyama-san's stuff. See you later!"

(To tell the truth Matsuo and Kageyama don't even bat an eyelash anymore and they leave behind a gawking boy with eyes as round as saucers).

One time a second year boy is waiting for her next to the vending machine. He's taller and more broad-shouldered than her. He gives her a lopsided, lazy smirk and offers to buy her a milk box. She thanks him but refuses and he starts to pest her: c'mon, don't be like that, sweetie, I bet you're not as cold as you look. When he drops a hand on her shoulder she pushes it off brusquely, he keeps advancing on her. She shoves him, but he's rather heavy and starts to get pissed off.

"Hey, you don't have to—"

His voice is drowned by a high-pitched cry when in an orange blur Hinata arrives running at top speed and throws herself at him like a bolt, making him drop to the ground.

"STAY AWAY FROM HER, BUTTHEAD!"

Kageyama has to grab Hinata from under her armpits to get her away from him before he can retaliate. Her cries summon Tanaka, whose expression turns much more tempestuous than when she's trying to intimidate rival teams.

"What do you think you're doing to my kouhais, you jerk? If she said no it means no, or do you want to get your face smashed? Is that what you want? Because I'll do it, you don't have to ask twice."

It doesn't matter that he's taller and heavier than her: Tanaka drags him away, twisting his arm behind his back and berating him all the way.

Afterwards Suga-san approaches her and says she has nothing to worry about, from now on he'll leave her alone. She also asks if she wants to talk about it, Kageyama shakes her head. There's nothing to say. Sugawara sighs.

"Sadly there are many boys – and some older guys – like that. It's not your fault – it's theirs, always."

She squeezes her shoulder softly.

"Next time, kick him. In the balls if you have to."

It's the most useful piece of advice anyone has ever given her.

Later, when they're walking home and Hinata's dragging her bike, Kageyama glances at her.

"…butthead?"

She turns red up to her hairline.

"Shut up, I didn't have the time to come up with a better insult, I had to defend you!"

"You, defending me?"

Hinata throws her shoulders back and lifts up her chin, like every time someone calls her shorty.

"I did, didn't I? And I'd do it again."

She sounds so sure of herself and a warm feeling that has nothing to do with the evening weather fills Kageyama from head to foot. She feels the corners of her lips curving and tries to hide it behind a scowl.

"It's me who has to defend you, you're featherweight and you barely reached his chest."

"I don't have to be tall to kick him, Bakageyama!"

She shoves her with her shoulder and Kageyama gets back at her, and they keep it up until they reach the point in which their paths home diverge.

She'll never tell her, but watching Hinata drop a guy to the ground so much bigger than her was quite impressive.


	4. 4 The non-date

One day at lunchtime, Matsuo isn't alone at their regular spot. There is a boy keeping him company, a boy with long dark bangs falling over his eyes, long skinny legs and a beaming grin.

"Hi, my name is Fujioka Soichiro. Matsuo-kun told me he was helping you with English and since I'm also awful at it, he's gonna help me too."

"I said I could help you out after class in the library," Matsuo hisses and Fujioka elbows him, his grin still bright on his face. Kageyama rolls her eyes: as though she needed even more people joining them.

Hinata, on the other hand, seems delighted to meet a friend of Matsuo's. Soon the two of them are carrying the conversation on their own, because it turns out Fujioka likes the same videogame she plays with Kenma, who of course is already at a level way more advanced than either of them, so Hinata shares with him all the cheats that Nekoma's setter has taught her. Both of them speak while gesturing a lot as Matsuo and Kageyama eat in silence. They don't get very far with English that day.

Fujioka starts to show up more and more often, and although he normally talks to Hinata as, at the very least, they have videogames as an assured conversation topic, he's always glancing at Kageyama and beaming. She sees it coming, so the first time he pretends to stretch and looks like he's going to put his arm around her shoulders, she sticks her elbow in his ribs hard enough to leave him breathless. He coughs to mask his pained hiss, his smile still clutching at his lips. He sits a little farther from her, though.

He doesn't try a second time, but he keeps beaming at her in a very annoying way, so she makes an effort to ignore him. Anyway, it's only for a short amount of time: Hinata wolfs down her food at top speed and tugs on her sleeve so they can go training.

At least, when she has the ball in her hands, she doesn't have to worry about any boys whatsoever. She just has to follow Hinata's movements, take a deep breath and toss.

And Hinata is always, always there to spike her toss, that radiant look on her face, as though she had grazed the moon with her fingertips.

As though Kageyama had handed it over to her.

* * *

"Shouyou, you don't have practice this Saturday, right?"

"Nope, 'cause Takeda-sensei said they have to disinfect or someth—KAGEYAMA, WHAT'S WRONG? ARE YOU DYING?"

She pats – uselessly – her back until Kageyama manages to swallow the bit of food lodged in her throat. Hinata pushes a water bottle into her hands that Matsuo hands out and she downs it in a few gulps.

"What a scare, you can't go and die on me right before the practice match Takeda-sensei said she'd arrange for us."

Kageyama glares.

"Sorry if my death inconveniences you right now."

Hinata rolls her eyes.

"Bakageyama, your death would always inconvenience me. But more so right before a match."

"You're such a dumbass."

The girl beams at her.

"Good, you're okay now." She must notice the boys' puzzled looks because she adds for their benefit: "She wouldn't call me a dumbass if she was feeling off."

"Oh, okay. Are you sure you're alright, Kageyama-san?" Matsuo asks cautiously.

She nods half-heartedly. And maybe because Tsukishima is right (not that she'd ever admit it) and her brain is all muscle, she opens her mouth without thinking twice and spits:

"Since when do you call her Shouyou?"

Hinata starts to babble something that sounds like Bakageyama, what kind of question is that, your brain melted, Fujioka covers his mouth with one hand to hide his expression as Matsuo just blinks several times, as though he didn't get the question.

"Er… everyone in our class calls her that? At least her friends do…"

Kageyama grinds her teeth, for some unknowable reason, feeling like someone had just kicked her.

Noya-san calls her Shouyou, but she's also the only one that calls Tanaka "Ryu" and even calls her older brother Onii-san, as though he were her own. Kenma has also called her by her given name as soon as she met her, and Kageyama doesn't like to think about why it always sat poorly with her, the easy camaraderie that sprouted between Hinata and Nekoma's setter from the get go. Maybe because she doesn't have the skill of making new friends everywhere she goes like it was nothing and talk to them as though she'd known them for her whole life, maybe because Hinata always talks way too enthusiastically about a girl she's only seen face to face once in her life.

But Noya-san is Noya-san and after a while she got used to Kenma, who tries to explain Math to them on Skype, and little by little stops to look so frightened when Kageyama asks her about volley.

Those airheads from her class calling her Shouyou, though, it's much more annoying. Do any of them even spend time with Hinata outside class? She's pretty sure that's not the case, because they have training before and after class six days a week, and it's Kageyama who meets her as soon as she steps down from her bike to race to the gym, it's Kageyama who walks her to her classroom and who waits for her to have lunch together. It's Kageyama who joins her after practice to clean up (and run around the gym dragging the mops until Daichi yells at them) and who walks by her side until their paths home split. Have any of them ever served as her pillow during a long bus ride? Have any of them heard her singing when she's skipping all the way to the toilet? Do they know she gets stomachaches before matches, that she tilts her head to the side when she doesn't get something, that she's concerned because she can't catch the ball one-handed yet?

And what could Matsuo know about any of this?

"Oh, yeah, but the girls on the team all call me Hinata, except Noya-san," Hinata is explaining to him while Kageyama turns into a small erupting volcano, trying to hold herself back so she doesn't implode. "She does call me Shouyou… at least she doesn't call me Shou-chan, like Mito."

Matsuo sighs and nods.

"Mito has a thing with nicknames…"

"But you look like a Shou-chan," Fujioka pipes up. "It really suits you." He turns towards Kageyama. "What about you? Don't they call you Tobio-chan?"

The boy's voice is too low to be mistaken with Oikawa-san's unbearable falsetto, but even so it earns him a withering glare.

From Hinata.

"Don't call her that: she doesn't like it."

Her tone is so frigid the temperature around them seems to drop several degrees. She has that look on her face, like when someone mocks her height, but worse. Fujioka winces and Matuo's eyes widen.

Daichi once said that sometimes Hinata could get a very intimidating air about her without even realizing it: for once, Kageyama can see it.

"Sorry, it was just a joke, I didn't mean…" Fujioka raises his hands defensively, not very clear which one of them he's trying to shield himself from. "I didn't mean to offend her, I'll never call her that again."

Hinata tilts her head to the side, her eyes glued on the boy, who swallows. Her lips are pressed into a very thin line. Then she smiles, and once again she's the petite girl with way too much enthusiasm that looks like a wet kitten when she's exasperated.

"Then it's alright, isn't it, Kageyama? Hey, are you going to eat that meat bun?"

"You already ate yours!"

But she ends up handing over half of her meat bun, of course.

They're about to finish lunch when Matsuo strikes again:

"Shouyuou, if you're free this Saturday, would you like to go to the movies?"

Hinata gapes at him, Kageyama gapes at Hinata and Fujioka chokes on his juice and everyone ignores him.

"Ehhh," she replies, manifesting her usual eloquence. "I guess so. What do you say, Kageyama?"

What do I say? I say you tell him to go scuba diving into the Arctic ocean, like I did with every moron who asked me out in front of you, and every idiot who offered to carry my books so you'd do it instead, and every dumbass who wanted me to sit with him during lunch instead of you, that's what I say.

Before she can open up her mouth and dig her own grave with words, Hinata smiles at her, but there's something a bit nervous in that smile, like when she gets scared before a match and she denies it furiously (and Kageyama knows she's looking for her to pull her hair and call her dumbass and tell her that she has nothing to fear, that as long as she is there she'll be invincible).

She hesitates.

"What do I say about what?"

Hinata rolls her eyes.

"Do you want to go to the movies on Saturday?"

"Ehhhh," Matsuo begins, sounding almost as confused as Kageyama feels.

Fujioka's face lights up.

"I'm free on Saturday. And if we go to the mall, I can get 2x1 coupons, what do you say?"

"Awesome!" Hinata replies as she grabs her by the arm and starts to pull. "Now Kageyama and I got to go to train, but later we'll work out at what time we go and all that, right? See you!"

"What? I never said yes—"

"C'mon, Kageyama, lunchtime is almost over."

She keeps protesting, but she has no choice but to follow Hinata because, even though she's eighteen centimeters shorter than her and weighs several kilos less, when she puts her mind to it she can pull hard enough to rip off your arm. She drags her to the spot where they like to practice before afternoon lessons, and once there Kageyama finally digs her heels on the ground and Hinata lets go of her arm. The girl at once raises her arms in a defensive posture, preparing herself for an imminent attack.

Kageyama wants to yell that she's a dumbass and a moron who has no right to go around deciding stuff for her, and she doesn't even want to hear about going to the movies with the other two morons, Hinata can go by herself with those two as far as Kageyama's concerned; she also wants her to grab her by the shoulders and shake her and pull her hair and pull her own hair.

No one in the world drives her crazy like Hinata Shouyou drives her crazy.

She opens her mouth, certain that flames are sprouting from her head, like Hinata claims it happens when she's really mad, and she's about to tell her a thing or two when she notices that her lips are trembling a bit and her eyes look like Bambi's right after the huntsman shot his mom.

Definitely no one drives her crazy like she does.

"K-Kageyama-san, I know you're mad but let me explain…"

Kageyama huffs and a large portion of her will to fight abandons her with the breath that escapes her mouth.

"Why did you ask me to go with you on Saturday? Are you so stupid that you didn't realize Matsuo was asking you out?"

Hinata starts to get annoyed as well.

(It's better than when it looked like she was about to cry, to be honest).

"Of course I realized, Bakageyama! How dumb do you think I am?" She knows her well enough not to let her answer that particular question. "I panicked."

Kageyama blinks a few times, because she might believe a few unflattering things of Matsuo Akio, but he's not the sort that could scare anyone. Least of all Hinata, who is capable of spiking the ball with her eyes closed and she shouts I can jump! before each wall she faces.

"If you didn't want to go," she says slowly, so maybe she can make some sense of this crazy conversation, "why didn't you say so?"

Hinata's fingers tangle in her hair, leaving in its wake a whirlwind, orange strands pointing in all directions.

"It's not that I don't want to," she begins, waving her arms a lot. "It's just that, if the two of us went on our own to the movies, it was going to be a date. And I have no idea what to do on a date. What does one wear on a date? I don't have clothes for a date. No make-up either, and my mom will kill me if I touch hers after what happened the last time I tried. And does he have to come pick me up at my place? I don't want my mom or Natsu seeing him, they'd never let it go. And what do I do once I'm on a date? Do I let him hold my hand? And for how long? And what if he does that thing where he stretches and tries to put his arm around my shoulder, like they do in movies, and it's super awkward? Can I tell him to knock it off or does it look bad? And how do you handle popcorn on a date? You've watched me eating popcorn, I'm a mess, I end up with kernels up to my ears." Kageyama can attest to that: it's even worse than when she eats rice. "And what if the movie bores me and I fall asleep? It's happened before, but it'd look awful on a first date, right? And I don't have to do all that stuff that magazine that belonged to Tanaka's brother's ex said, do I? Because I don't remember very well which ones were do's and which ones don'ts, and I'm not sure I wanna seduce anyone. It sounds weird, and it's so awkward when Tanaka and Noya-san talk to Shimizu-kun like that, I couldn't do it without getting all red on the face. And does he have to walk me home? He lives in the opposite direction, and what if he kisses me? I've never kissed anyone; I bet I'll be terrible at it and what if—"

Kageyama grabs her by the shoulders and starts to shake her.

Gently, though, because Hinata is stupid but she also looks like she's having an awful time.

"Breathe, dumbass, breathe. You're drowning in a glass of water. Wear whatever you want, you're going to the mall with an idiot who's always seen you with your school or your gym uniform, you're not going to a dinner party with the president. And make-up isn't soooo hard, even I know about that." Hinata recovers enough to raise her eyebrows in utter incredulity, but it's true: she's got two older cousins who insisted on teaching her. Under threat of cutting her favorite volleyball if she didn't let them. "He's seen you enough times at lunch not to be horrified by anything you do. And if you don't want his arm around your shoulders, you elbow him and that's it, stop making such a fuss. And please, please don't even think of going to Tanaka or Noya for advice: there's a reason why neither has a boyfriend."

"That's the thing!" Hinata cries. "None of the girls have a boyfriend, so I have nobody to turn to!"

"And you turn to me for help?"

Hinata bits her lip and shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

"Weeeeeell, I thought that, if you were there, it wouldn't be a date-date, and I wouldn't have to worry about any of that stuff. I thought it'd be just hanging out, like when you and I go to the movies, just with other people coming along."

Kageyama wants to pull her own hair, because it's not hanging out like usual if more people who have nothing to do there go along with them.

The bell that signals the beginning of afternoon lessons rings, and Hinata's appalled look when she realizes they've run out of time to practice would be comical if it didn't frustrate her too.

"We'll talk later," she bids her farewell in a tone that makes Hinata swallow. She deserves it for being so dumb.

That afternoon during class she breaks two pencils and then at practice she hits Hinata with the wall three times and the girl doesn't even complain. Sugawara and Daichi exchange glances but apparently they decide not to step in until the situation reaches a critical point.

When practice is over and they split into pairs to help each other stretch, Hinata seems to hesitate for a moment, but if she pairs up with anyone but Kageyama it'll raise general suspicion so she gulps, pushes her shoulders back and walks towards her. Kageyama rolls her eyes: as if she'd ever do anything that could hurt her and leave her on the bench during a game. Besides, the girl is so elastic that she bends in two with no help at all; she's so envious of the easy way she can touch her toes or reach the floor with her chest when she sits open-legged.

Maybe because her legs are so short, Noya-san's the same, but Kageyama at long last has learnt to keep that kind of comments to herself.

(She's still better than Tanaka, who once blurted out that her elasticity would one day make her incredibly popular with boys and it earned her a whack on the back of her head, courtesy of Daichi, as Hinata's face became ablaze).

The girls chat with their normal ease all around her: Ennoshita is planning a new movie and a couple of them yell that they want the starring role (but you don't even know what it's gonna be about yet), Tanaka tells them about her brother's latest concert, Sugawara comments on Asahi's new headband:

"Oh, see, Shimizu-kun told me that if I kept tying my hair so tightly, I might go bald."

"Did you hear that, Kageyama? You'll end up hairless."

"That will be you, moron." And she pulls her hair as she pushes her forwards so she stretches, and Hinata squeaks like usual and everybody ignores them.

"It suits you, Asahi," Sugawara goes on as if nothing had happened, used as she is to Kageyama's and Hinata's goofing around.

"It's in Karasuno's colors, see?" Noya pipes up, sounding as proud as though she had bought it herself. For some reason Asahi blushes and Suga-san covers her mouth with her hand as Daichi rolls her eyes.

The senpais are a little weird at times.

Once they finish stretching Hinata seems to have gone back to normal because she challenges Kageyama to see which one of them can pick up more balls in less time. They're going at it, running around the gym and dodging Narita and Kinoshita, occupied with mop duty, when Takeda-sensei arrives beaming. They all stop on their tracks because they know what it means: they've finally gotten a practice match.

It's a school in a nearby prefecture that Kageyama has never heard about, but the coach tells them they were finalists at their prefecture even though they didn't make it to Nationals.

"So it's a strong team, at Aobajousai's level or maybe even better. We'd better work hard if we want to have a chance against them."

As the school is a bit far, they'll have to spend the night away from home and the loud cheers reverberate in the gym. Noya climbs onto Tanaka's shoulders and they dash off to run around the rest, until Daich stops them by clutching Tanaka's shirt. Takeda reminds them that they need signed permission from their parents and Ukai yells at them to go back to cleaning up the gym, that they have to close soon and she shouldn't have to repeat this sort of stuff anymore. The effervescence, running through the group of girls like an electric current, is difficult to contain: they're all already talking at the same time, about the rival team, about possible strategies, but also about the snacks they want to take for the trip, whether they'll tell horror tales again (Asahi goes white), whether the other school's gym might be more modern than theirs.

Hinata talks as much as everyone else, gesticulating so much that she drops the balls more than once and Kageyama wins that round with ease.

"What do you think the girls on the other team will be like?"

"How would I know? I never watched them play." Kageyama shrugs. "They must be good if they got to the finals, although I don't know much about that prefecture. Anyway, it doesn't matter how strong the other team is—"

"—we've got to win, I know." Hinata grins. "And we will."

Kageyama feels the corners of her lips curving upwards and she barely manages to keep herself from smiling; Hinata tends to run away when she does.

The girl is now skipping and she could call her a dumbass, but even though she doesn't show it, she shares her enthusiasm at a new rival, a new challenge. One more step on their path to the Nationals and for what will come next: because they've both promised to get to the top, together.

And when she sees the glowing look on Hinata's face, bursting with confidence like she did during that match against Nekoma when she smiledafter getting blocked one more time, she knows they'll make it.

* * *

The following day a large portion of her good mood vanishes when she finds Fujioka waiting for her by the vending machine. She remembers Sugawara's advice and some of her thoughts must reflect on her face because the boy stops pulling on his sleeves to raise his hands in front of him as defense.

"Hey, I come in peace, I swear."

Kageyama scowls even more and crosses her arms. He swallows.

"Hey, see, about going to the movies on Saturday… Well, I'll just go and say it: we don't have to go with it if you don't want to. Look, our friends are two useless idiots, I think we've all realized that, and we don't have to go through such an awkward situation, do we?" He pulls on his sleeves again. "If it's because of me that you don't wanna go, I apologize again for the Tobio-chan thing: it won't happen again. And, ehhh… I won't try to put my arm around your shoulders again either."

She squints at him and hopes that the message you'd better not reaches him loud and clear.

He shifts, uneasy, so it appears to work.

"Well, what do you say? About Saturday, I mean. Are we going to babysit those two morons? Who knows, maybe it'll be fun and all. Or not. Look, if you really don't want to, don't worry, I'm sure Matsuo can ask some girl in their class, he gets along with Hinata's group…"

Hinata's group? Hinata's group is the volleyball team, the people she spends with six days out of seven, not her dumbass classmates.

Kageyama clenches her teeth.

"I've already told Hinata that I'd go. But I won't sit beside you and you won't hold my hand or anything like that."

He blinks a few times, his jaw falling open.

"Oh… okay, then." He smiles, or something like that: his mouth is still hanging open with shock. "See you on Saturday, then!"

She's just doing what Tanaka told her: trying to be a good friend.

* * *

She begins to rethink the merits of being a good friend when the team finds out.

"Wait, wait, stop the presses, did you get Kageyama to agree to a double date? How? Blackmail? Did you threaten her with something?"

"It's not a double date," Hinata hastens to say, perhaps perceiving the furious flames starting to take form around Kageyama's head. "It's, um, a group outing. Like when she and I go to the movies, but with more people."

"…like a double date, then?" mumbles, maybe, Narita, but when Kageyama glances in her direction the girl gets a coughing fit and stares very hard at her shoelaces.

"I can't believe they've got a date, our little ones," Noya says as Tanaka pretends to dry her tears.

"It's not a date!"

"Well, a non-date then. What are you gonna wear?"

Hinata's eyes widen a lot and she gives Kageyama a scared look, Kageyama just shrugs: she'll wear whatever is at the top of the ironed pile.

Something must show on her face because the girls throw her suspicious glances.

"You won't go in your uniform, right?"

She rolls her eyes. As if she'd risk getting a stain on her uniform over something so silly.

"…or that T-shirt of yours with Setter's Soul emblazoned on it or anything like that, right?"

Kageyama frowns. What's wrong with that T-shirt? It's nice.

It's the wrong answer because even Daichi, who wears her hair cropped short so she doesn't have to bother to comb it, grabs her head.

"I hate to be the one saying this, but you need help."

Before she realizes what's going on, Noya and Tanaka have invited themselves to Kageyama's house (Hinata lives way too far and it's easier to meet at the house that's closest to the mall anyway) to supervise the preparations, and they've roped Asahi into it because it's your duty as a senpai, Asahi-san. Asahi doesn't look any happier about it than Kageyama.

Hinata just looks very confused.

"So, you're saying I have to carry a bag with clothes to Kageyama's so you tell me what to wear?"

"We won't tell you what to wear. We're just gonna help you pick."

"And how do I know what clothes to take? I can't put the entirety of my closet in a bag."

"Whatever you think might be more or less good for a date… I mean, a group outing."

Hinata tilts her head and she could almost swear that she sees the interrogation mark appearing above her mop of orange hair. Tanaka drags her hand over her face, but Noya-san doesn't let such little things dampen her enthusiasm.

"As a last resort I can take some of my clothes and I'll lend you something."

"But you're shorter than me…"

"By three miserable centimeters, Shouyou!"

Kageyama feels a gentle squeeze on her shoulder and she meets Sugawara's calming smile.

"If it's okay with you, I can go to your place on Saturday as well. I mean," she glances at Tanaka and Noya, who are gesticulating a lot like usual, "to keep those two under control. I can't promise you to get them off your back, but…"

She gets an effusive nod from Kageyama: if Suga-san is there, surely she'll be able to handle things before they get too out of hand.

That's how on Saturday, right after lunch, they show up at her place; a very nervous Hinata carrying a bag, Asahi who won't stop apologizing, Noya and Tanaka pretty much bouncing with excitement and Suga-san, who looks at them all with her hands on her hips and has the same expression Kageyama's mother gets when she knows she has a very difficult day ahead.

It's unlikely it'll be worse than the day that awaits Kageyama, it goes without saying.

She's glad her parents left to visit some relatives: the looks they gave her were strange enough when she just told them about going to the movies. What? You're going out with other people besides Hinata? And it's not volleyball-related?. She suspects that what they really were dying to ask her was who are you and what've you done with our daughter? but they refrained with some difficulty.

Explaining to them the strange behavior of the Karasuno team would've been more than she could handle.

Tanaka and Noya go through the contents of Hinata's bag and Kageyama's closet with a critical eye. Neither of them looks very enthusiastic.

"Kageyama, do you even own anything that's not sportswear?"

She shrugs. She must have something, because every now and then her mother insists on getting her clothes for special occasions and there're also the presents from her aunts or grandma, but it's very likely those clothes are scrunched into a ball at the bottom, hidden behind an old volleyball.

"Do you want me to look for something?" Sugawara suggests and after a moment, Kageyama nods: she has a lot more trust in her than in the other two.

That's how the girls end up dragging Hinata to the bathroom with both bags – hers and the one Noya brought from home – and Asahi follows them after Sugawara gives her a warning look that makes her swallow. Once they're alone she smiles at Kageyama.

"It's not such a big deal, you're just going to the movies," she says in a calming tone and that's what Kageyama's been telling stupid Hinata from the beginning.

Looking through her stuff, Sugawara finds a jean skirt about the same length as her school uniform skirt, a dark blue blouse with tiny white flowers on the collar that she didn't even remember she owned, and a pair of flat sandals.

"Why should you be uncomfortable in high heels, if you're probably taller than them anyway," says Sugawara and she's right.

"If you want to wear some make-up, I can lend you a hand with that."

Kageyama shakes her head: she actually does know how to apply make-up, but she doesn't feel like it. Suga-san doesn't insist and instead she offers to brush her hair.

"You've got such pretty hair, Kageyama. It's so straight it's super easy to comb."

Once her eldest cousin tried to curl her hair: the curls lasted about an hour or two before straightening out themselves.

She pushes off her forehead a couple of strands with a pair of hair clips, so gently she doesn't even feel it. Not even her mother combed her hair with such care when she was little. When she's finished she takes her to the mirror and Kageyama thinks it's not too bad: she looks more or less like usual, when she's not training. She thanks Sugawara with a bow.

"It's not a big deal. Now what do you say we go to see how the girls are doing? Because maybe it's me, but I don't know if I'm more alarmed by the screaming coming from the bathroom I heard earlier or the current silence."

With a little apprehension they approach the bathroom and from inside Asahi's voice resounds: no, Noya, not that. Sugawara rasps her knuckles on the ajar door.

"Can we come in?"

"Wait a sec!"

Kageyama ponders on the thick coat of eyeliner around Tanaka's eyes and Cosmopolitan's advice and she gets a bad feeling.

"Ta da!" Noya exclaims as she opens the door and moves aside so they can see Hinata.

Kageyama's fears turn out to be unfounded: she sees neither eyeliner nor three kilos of dark eye shadow on her lids, neither fiery red on her lips nor fishnets, or any of the things that crossed her mind when Tanaka and Noya offered – imposed – their help. Instead Hinata looks… well, she looks like Hinata. She's wearing a sleeveless, light green blouse, with a headband to match holding her hair back, white shorts and flat shoes. She has no make-up on except for a bit of lip gloss and some highlight shade on her lids (no, she wasn't lying when she claimed to know about that stuff). The final result is way more modest than she expected.

Hinata rocks back and forth on her heels, her eyes wide open.

"Wow, Kageyama, you look quite decent, Suga-san managed to fix you up quite well."

She doesn't growl at her but it's a near thing. It's not like she's a mess just because she doesn't wear make-up and all that stuff, does Hinata believe she grew up in a cave or what?

She'd rather not ask: the moron is quite capable of saying yes.

"You look very pretty, Hinata," Sugawara says and she elbows Kageyama, who lets out an "aha". From the way the other setter looks at her, she realizes it's not good enough and racks her brain to find what to say.

"Your headband and that blouse, the color… It's like your uniform's. It's… nice."

Four pairs of eyes stare at her, with varying degrees of bafflement.

"Kageyama, Hinata's uniform is black and orange…"

"…like all of our uniforms…"

"…I thought you were absent-minded but not this much…"

"Oh my God, she's colorblind and we've never noticed."

Hinata gapes, her mouth a bit open, ignoring everyone else.

"You still remember my old uniform?"

"Of course I remember," she answers, shrugging. For some reason, a pink dust paints Hinata's cheeks and then she feels her own cheeks heating up, without understanding the reason. It makes sense to remember the first time she saw her, right?

The other four let out a relieved "ahhh!" and then Noya turns to Sugawara.

"I wanted to lend her a pair of high heel sandals…"

"…but she was gonna kill herself" Tanaka finishes and Asahi nods vehemently from behind her.

If Hinata ended up on the bench with a twisted ankle for trying to keep her balance on high heels, she'd have twisted her neck. For being such a moron.

"Well, I think our mission here's been accomplished. I'm dying to go with you and see the looks on their faces when they spot you – don't look at me like that, we're not gonna do that, what do you take us for? Okay, don't answer that."

The girls bid them goodbye on the front steps of her house, but Kageyama is ill at ease until she sees them walk away in the opposite direction of the mall. Tanaka and Noya keep shouting advice over their shoulder that ranges from remember to eat some mint Tic-Tacs just in case to don't rub ice cubes on your breasts! Sugawara and Asahi make an effort to drag them away from there.

"Don't do anything we wouldn't do!"

"That doesn't leave them with many options, Ryu."

At long last they disappear after a turn and both of them let out sighs of relief.

"Thank goodness. I mean, it's not like I don't appreciate their help and all," Hinata hastens to add. "But at times it can be a little… much."

Kageyama nods. Just like Hinata, although for different reasons, this is the first time she feels part of a team who cares about her inside and outside the court. And she appreciates it, more than she could ever say, but yes: sometimes, it's a little much.

"We should get going, shouldn't we?"

Right: the hardest part begins now.

On the way she is surprised to find herself glancing constantly at her friend from the corner of her eye. Perhaps because, now that she thinks of it, this is the first time she sees her in something that's not sportswear or the school uniform. It… suits her, she guesses. She's not good at judging this sort of stuff. The blouse she wears is pretty, although the collar might be too wide: looking at her from above, as Kageyama inevitably does, she can spot the curve of her breasts and the lacy rim of her bra (it's lilac). It's not like Hinata has a lot of bosom to speak of, but for some reason that slight curve keeps drawing her gaze and she has to make an effort to look away.

Hinata notices something and frowns.

"What? Is there something off? Did I get a stain or something?"

Kageyama shakes her head, praying her cheeks don't get ablaze again and give her away.

"No, it's not that. That blouse… It's Noya-san's, isn't it?"

"Oh, yeah. All my T-shirts were too sporty, she said. She also lent me her lip gloss and she gave it to me to put it on again, if it comes off." She takes out of her pocket a transparent little tube with some purple-ish liquid. "It says on the label that it's cherry flavored, but it doesn't taste of anything." She slides the tip of her tongue over her lips and then shakes her head, disappointed. "Here, see for yourself."

She hands over the lip gloss and when she unscrews the cap and puts it under her nose, Kageyama feels the scent of cherry bubblegum – that has little or nothing to do with actual cherries. She puts a bit of it on her lips and it's true: it doesn't taste of anything.

"Why does it say it's cherry flavored if it's flavorless?"

"Perhaps it's flavorless so people like you don't end up eating it."

"Shut up, Bakageyama." She gives her a shove with her shoulder, which Kageyama pays back in kind, and it's so normal and everyday-like that she forgets they're going to the movies to meet with other people: it could just be any other day on their way to the gym for practice.

Hinata even starts running at one point and Kageyama follows suit, she always follows suit. She manages to run past her with a triumphal exhalation but then she feels a grip on her arm and a yank backwards.

"Hey, you cheating dumbass…!"

But a cyclist rushes past her and she shuts up at once.

"Bakageyama, look where you're going, you almost got run over!"

She begrudgingly thanks her but even so Hinata refuses to let her go, her grip getting tighter if possible.

"I can't trust you now, you need someone to take you by the hand."

"Shut up, dumbass."

But when Hinata intertwines their fingers and squeezes tightly, she doesn't put much of an effort to free herself. Her hand is small and warm and it doesn't bother her to walk like this, swinging their joined hands, as though it wasn't a big deal, as though it were completely natural. The only one she's walked holding hands with was her mother and that only when she was little, but for some reason, doing it with Hinata doesn't feel weird at all. After all, Hinata has climbed on her back more than once for a piggy ride, she's clung to her neck after winning a match, she's fallen asleep with her head on her shoulder on more than one bus ride. For her, that kind of stuff is normal, she's also terribly touchy-feely with the rest of her teammates; for her physical contact is a given. For Kageyama, who wasn't raised at the sort of household where hugs were the norm, it's hard but she's found that when it regards Hinata, she can get used to a lot.

They make it to the mall and the boys are already waiting for them there, waving their hands at them, Fujioka with a face-splitting grin. When she raises her hand to wave, Hinata's fingers slide out of hers and Kageyama wants to stick her hands in her pockets, but the stupid skirt doesn't have any. Why do they make clothes without pockets?

Fujioka is fidgeting so much, he looks like Hinata before a game.

"Wow, girls." He gives them a thumbs up. Kageyama doesn't know if she has to say something back: both of them look pretty normal to her, with their jeans and T-shirts, although Matsuo on top of his is wearing a lumberjack shirt and he's tried to domesticate his curls with a lot of gel. It's not worth an exclamation, though, so she keeps quiet.

"You look very pretty," Matsuo tells Hinata, and his blush bleeds over her cheeks. Kageyama feels the sudden urge to kick a shin, but she doesn't know very well whose.

Better not risk anything that might end with Hinata on the bench during a game.

"Thanks! Noya-san let me borrow her blouse and the headband, but it's so much easier when you got hair like Kageyama's: look how pretty it looks and she barely even combs it." To prove her point she grabs a strand of dark straight hair and, knowing her, Kageyama fears she'll yank on it, but instead she slides her fingers through her hair with an unexpected gentleness and she feels an unexplainable shudder. She pushes off her fingers with a swat of her hand.

"Don't yank on my hair, moron."

Hinata rolls her eyes but leaves her hair alone.

"Kageyama-san has very nice hair," Fujioka pipes up, smiling, and Hinata nods.

"She really does, doesn't she? It makes me so envious, when I compare it to mine that—"

"Your hair is alright, dumbass."

"Shouyou, you also have really nice hair."

Both of them speak at the same time and they shut up in unison, exchanging somewhat annoyed looks; Hinata's gaze goes from one to the other and she doesn't seem to make up her mind which one she'll reply to so she says thanks! to the air. Fujioka clears his throat.

"What do you say if you go to the queue to get the tickets as I go to buy popcorn?" He turns to Kageyama and for a moment she has the horrible suspicion he'll ask her to go with him, what will force her to send him to hell, but whatever he was going to say, he prefers to keep it to himself.

Once they're at the queue at the ticket box Hinata thinks of a rather crucial question.

"What are we gonna watch?"

Matsuo ruffles his curly hair, ruining all his efforts to tame it with gel.

"Well, there's this romantic comedy my sister liked, but I don't know if you two are into that sort of movies. There's also The Cursed Cabin III… you told me you'd already watched the first two, right? As you like horror movies, I thought you'd prefer that one."

"Oh, yeah, I love them! Let's watch that one."

There is a truth universally acknowledged or at least accepted by the entire Karasuno team: Hinata Shouyou is a coward who stubbornly insists on her love for horror films even though it's the most blatant lie in the world. When Noya-san or Ennoshita propose watching a horror movie, she's always the first one to nod enthusiastically as Asahi hides her face in her hands and Tanaka asks her are you absolutely sure?.

And after the first five minutes Hinata spends the rest of the movie with her face hidden in Kageyama's shoulder.

Technically speaking, it's true she watched The Cursed Cabin I and The Cursed Cabin II, in the sense that she was sitting in the same room when Noya-san put them in the DVD player and she stayed till the end. But Kageyama is pretty convinced that if anyone asked her what color the clothes the main characters wore, Hinata wouldn't have the slightest clue because she didn't have her eyes open from the moment the movie began until the final credits were over.

She's too stubborn to own up to it, of course.

"Oh, great! I mean, if Kageyama-san is okay with it…"

His tone is nice and the smile he gives her, very polite, and yet Kageyama at once thinks of Tsukishima's smirk and the mocking in her voice when she says don't tell me Her Majesty freaks out over a little bit of fake blood. She clenches her teeth and shrugs.

"For me it's alright," she says, and it's also a lie because even though she'll never admit it out loud, she doesn't like horror movies that much. But if she won't say it in front of Tsukishima, much less will she do it in front of Matsuo Akio.

They're already at the queue in front of the door to get in when Fujioka joins them, clutching two popcorn buckets in his arms.

"There were lots of people," he begins, "and you'll never guess what the group ahead of me did…"

He tells them a story that from his gestures must seem very funny to him, but that Kageyama pays no attention to as they look for their seats. Matsuo sits at Hinata's right and Kageyama at her left, and she casts a suspicious glance at Fujioka, but he keeps his word and sits next to his friend.

The lights are already dimmed when Fujioka remembers to ask what they're going to watch.

"The Cursed Cabin III."

Fujioka raises his head at once and his eyes fix on Matsuo.

"Do… do you think it's a good pick, Matsuo-kun? The girls might not like it, maybe a comedy would've—"

"They picked it" he replies with a shrug, and Fujioka snaps his mouth shut. He swallows.

"Oh, okay!" he says, and maybe it's the weird acoustics in the room, but his voice sounds strangely high-pitched. "If the girls like it, then…"

He falls silent, suddenly very focused on the popcorn, but then the trailers begin and they stop paying him any attention. Hinata is pretty much vibrating in her seat. Matsuo glances at her, and every now and then he makes the attempt to place his hand on their shared armrest, which is now partially occupied by Hinata's elbow, but his eyes meet Kageyama's and he places his hand back on his lap.

The movie begins and the opening credits show up with the same red letters that seem to be drenched in blood, and the same dramatic music she remembers of the two prior installments she watched at Noya-san's. The setting also seems suspiciously similar to the other two movies: a group of young people, college-aged this time, decide to spend a weekend away from everything in a cabin, lost in the middle of the woods, where there's no internet or cellphone signal, to "disconnect from it all."

"We know already something like this'd never happen to Kenma" Hinata whispers in her ear with a giggle. Kageyama thinks it wouldn't happen to them either, unless it was a volleyball training camp or something like that.

It's a bit sad to think about it, but it's probably under the only circumstances they would risk their lives like that. And they wouldn't think twice of it.

The boys and girls on screen laugh, dance and drink beer and like it always happens, there's a couple that starts stripping for no good reason. In the middle of the woods. With the creepy music on in the background. Kageyama knows they can't hear that music, but it upsets her all the same how stupid they are. How could they've missed all the clues that told them to run away right now?

She starts to tense up and she clutches the armrests long before anything happens. She's not going to scream in the middle of a crowded room; she's not going to jump a foot off her seat; she's not going to make a fool of herself. She's already watched the first two, she knows how things turn out, if you think about it, they're super predictable, there's nothing to—

WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?

Luckily she's not the only one who screams and jumps in her seat, so at least it goes almost unnoticed. But she has a very brief moment of respite because then the blood floods the screen and it's horrifying. She's too proud to close her eyes but oh god, oh god that's awful, that should never come out of a human being, why did she allow herself to be dragged into this torture, and to top it all this is only the beginning, and how that moron of Hinata endures this is anyone's guess, and how much blood can come out of the same person, really, it's never over, and suddenly Kageyama lets out a muffled yelp that has nothing to do with what's going on in the movie, when she feels a sudden weight on her lap and two tentacles closing in around her neck.

"What…?"

She almost chews on a mop of orange hair when she opens her mouth and she snaps it shut at once, feeling a warm breath on her neck.

She should've known.

"Hinata, you're such a dumbass" she mutters but the girl doesn't reply, too busy trying to sink her nose in the space between her neck and her shoulder. "You gotta go back to your seat."

She barely moves her head to shake it and she clutches even more to Kageyama when the screaming on screen intensifies. It's a lost cause: Hinata can hold on tighter than a tick and she guesses that, after jumping over the armrest to land on Kageyama's lap in the middle of a crowded room, dignity must be the last thing on her mind. She's bragged so much of her love of horror movies: Kageyama is going to mock her for ages.

Once this horrible torture of a movie is over, assuming both of them survive it.

The first bloodshed is over and there's a moment of tranquility but Hinata doesn't even hint at going back to her seat. She's done well: before anyone expects it, the second couple is gutted and it's even more atrocious than the first time. When she's not hiding her face in her shoulder, Hinata grabs one of Kageyama's hands and covers her eyes with it, because apparently her own hands are not enough. Kageyama uses her free hand to hold the girl grabbing her by the legs and preventing her from falling to the floor each time she winces, which is often.

And if Kageyama takes advantage of the mop of orange hair to cover her eyes every now and then, none is the wiser.

"Shouyou, are you alright?" Matsuo asks in a whisper, when the massacre on screen has reached its most blood-curdling and horrifying point.

"Y-yeah, s-sure," she replies, not letting go of Kageyama's hand, pressed against her eyes not to see anything. Either satisfied for doing his duty or resigned at the circumstances, Matsuo gets his attention back to the screen and keeps on munching popcorn with nonchalance. Kageyama sees him so calm that she'd kick his head. She can't see what Fujioka's doing from where she is, but if he makes one wisecrack after the movie, she'll stick the popcorn bucket on his head.

It's the last time she's talked into something so stupid, not even under threat or through blackmail.

She settles Hinata a little more comfortably on her knees so she doesn't slip off her lap. She's not as much of a featherweight as Kageyama often mocks her, but she's not unbearable either. It's not the first time: when they travel somewhere and there's shortage of seats, Hinata always ends up on her lap. Sometimes she even falls asleep like that, her head on her shoulder, drooling all over her jacket, and Suga-san takes pictures with her cell and Tsukishima and Yamaguchi laugh in her face. And she can't do a thing without waking up the idiot, so she ends up simmering, furious and without an outlet.

As her grandma says, there's no evil that lasts forever, not even Math exams or those movies with an overabundance of spilled blood and guts. At long last the last body drops to the ground, the end credits show up and the lights are back on.

Hinata raises her head, blinking, and she slides off Kageyama's lap and goes back to her seat.

"Wow, that was good, huh?" says the dirty liar, straightening out her blouse that looks like an accordion. Matsuo gawks at her.

"Eh, yeah, I guess. I mean, it was kinda… ehhh… predictable?"

Hinata frowns a little and tilts her head.

"It didn't seem that way to me. What do you say, Kageyama?"

Most of her muscles are numb after an hour and a half of constant tensing up, so she shrugs with some difficulty.

"It was similar to the first two. But bloodier, right?"

"Oh, yeah! This one has a lot more blood all around," Hinata says, as though she'd seen even a single drop. Matsuo gapes at her like Kageyama does at long division, without understanding the slightest thing. He lets out an "aha, sure" and sticks another popcorn kernel into his mouth before he turns to his right.

"Hey, Fujioka, what did you think of…? Fujioka? Are you okay?"

Now the lights are back on and people have started to get up from their seats to leave, Kageyama can finally see beyond Matsuo. But it's hard to see much, because Fujioka`s heels are on the seat, his arms around his legs and his face hidden between his knees.

It takes another two attempts on Matsuo's part to get a reaction from Fujioka, and he only manages it when he places a hand on his shoulder and the boy jumps and nearly falls off his seat. When he raises his head, even under his long bangs Kageyama can see that his face is all red and his eyes are swollen.

"It's… it's over now?"

His voice sounds feeble and wavering. The three of them exchange dumfounded glances. It's Hinata the first to recover.

"Yes, Fujioka-kun, it's over now, don't worry. And the credits are over so there's no scary surprise at the end either, we can go. Outside, I mean. Where there's people and light and all that."

It takes him a few more moments to regain enough control of his body to raise to his feet and start to walk towards the exit. Hinata casts Kageyama a questioning glance, she shrugs. Not even Asahi-san reacts that badly to horror movies.

When they're outside the cinema, the silence is positively awkward. Fujioka still looks whiter than milk and he even begins to seem a little greenish under the fluorescent lights; Matsuo stares at him as though he were an equation with three variables and keeps chucking popcorn into his mouth, maybe so he has an excuse not to say anything, and it's not like Kageyama is good for comforting anyone either.

Fortunately Hinata Shouyou hasn't found yet an awkward silence she couldn't fill with her tireless enthusiasm.

"Don't worry, Fujioka-kun, it's only normal, the movie was super scary. Asahi-san locked herself up in the bathroom not to watch the end of the second one and I think this one's special effects were even better." How could she know that when she's almost not seen any of it, only Hinata could say. When she sees that her words don't have much of an effect, she searches in her pockets and takes out a candy bar. "Here, Fujioka-kun. You'll feel better after eating something."

He doesn't seem that convinced but takes the offered candy bar and perhaps it's the effort to unwrap it when it's all sticky, or that sugar really has the power to cure fear, but he looks a little less white-green after a while. Matsuo's gaze sweeps the group, still somewhat puzzled.

"Eh… do you wanna grab a bite or something?"

Kageyama is about to protest because doing something after the movie never entered into the agreement she made. But then Hinata, who is always the first one to want to eat, casts a dubious glance at the sky, which has started to darken.

"I'd rather not, I don't wanna arrive when it's already dark."

Fujioka's progress vanishes when her words sink in.

"Oh, no. I have to get home," he mumbles and goes back to his prior white-green hue, a little greener if possible.

"There's no one at your place?"

"Well, yeah. But I have to get all the way there."

"Do you live very far?"

It turns out he lives only a little away from Kageyama and Hinata's face lights up.

"That's it, we'll walk you home, we're going the same way anyways. And the more we are the safer we'll be, right?" she adds, looking at Kageyama in search of confirmation. She nods begrudgingly.

Fujioka gapes, very wide-eyed.

"You'd… you'd really do that? But then you have to go on, all on your own… don't you live in the mountains, Hinata-san?"

"Oh, tonight I'm not going home, I'm staying over at Kageyama's. I'd never make it home if I had to go all the way alone and at night! No way, I'd die of a heart attack first. So there's no problem, we walk you home and then we go on to Kageyama's, right?"

This last part is aimed in her direction, and she doesn't need Hinata using her orphaned Bambi's eyes on her. No matter what Tsukishima says (or what her former Kitagawa Daiichi teammates might believe), Kageyama has some compassion and Fujioka looks like he might burst into tears.

Matsuo looks more and more dumbfounded.

"Ehhh, do you want me to go with you or…?"

"Oh, no, you live in the opposite direction! Then you'd have to make all the way on your own, what if something happens to you?"

"What could happen to me…?"

The three of them stare at him and his words die there.

"Okay, then I guess I'll see you at school. Eh, I had a nice time?"

He doesn't look very certain and he doesn't add "what do you say we do this again?"

He might not be a total idiot.

"See you, Matsuo-kun!"

Fujioka is uncharacteristically quiet during the whole way, jumping a foot in the air each time they hear a noise and one time, when a black cat crosses their way, he screams in the middle of the street. At once he gets as red as a tomato and in mutual and tacit accord, Hinata and Kageyama decide to ignore it and they start to chatter like usual, insulting and shoving each other as though he weren't there. That seems to make him feel a little better and when they reach his front door he no longer is in danger of a nervous breakdown.

"Hey, girls, hum… thanks. I know it's dumb, but…"

"Don't worry, we got scared too, right, Kageyama?"

Her first instinct is to vehemently deny it, but then she realizes there's no one there to mock her, so she nods. Fujioka seems a little more reassured after that. Until he remembers something and his expression turns guilty.

"But… now you have to go on just the two of you… and it's getting dark…"

"Oh, it doesn't matter: we'll run all the way to Kageyama's, we'll make it before nightfall."

And that's what they do: as soon as the door closes behind Fujioka, they dash down the street in a mad race, this time not competing against each other, but against the sun sinking in the horizon. They don't stop until they lock Kageyama's door, and as soon as they get a little breath back into their lungs, they run all the way to her bedroom too.

Later, Kageyama leaves the nightlight on when Hinata curls up to her under the duvet.

"You know something weird Matsuo-kun once told me?"

She doesn't want to know anything that airhead might've said so she grunts, and that's all the encouragement Hinata needs.

"Boys never share a bed when they have sleepovers, even if that means sleeping on the floor, because otherwise it's too awkward for them. Isn't it weird?"

Kageyama sometimes thinks that sleeping on the floor must be less uncomfortable than with Hinata's kicking and her tentacles wrapping around her.

"He thought it was super weird two girls could share a bed. Boys are very complicated. Imagine if Fujioka had stayed over at Matsuo's tonight: he would've had to sleep all alone on a futon, terrified as he was." Hinata settles her head on her shoulder as though it was a fluffy pillow and one of her arms wraps around her torso. "Sometimes I'm glad I'm not a boy."

It's true that most girls she knows, when they share a bed, sleep back to back and not in each other's arms like they do. Tsukishima's already rubbed it in many times, Yamaguchi snickering – and poorly hiding it – behind her.

However, with Hinata's hair tickling her chin and the perfect manner her head seems to settles on her shoulder and her little body molds against hers, as though she were the precise size to fit with her, Kageyama thinks she doesn't care too much whether it's normal or not, and she's also glad she's not a boy and she doesn't have to worry about all that nonsense.


	5. 5 We're gonna crush them

She should've seen it coming.

"And how did your non-date go?"

"What did they say when they saw you dressed like that?"

"Did anyone pass out?"

"What was the movie like?" asks Ennoshita, and both Tanaka and Noya glare at her.

"That's not important!"

She shrugs.

"It's important to me."

"Ehhhh, well, no, no one passed out. Were they supposed to?"

"…why," mutters Tsukishima, pretending to bash hear head on Yamaguchi's shoulder, who is covering her mouth with her hand.

"No, Hinata, it was just a manner of speech from Tanaka," Sugawara intervenes. "But anyway, how did it go? Did you have a good time?"

Hinata proceeds to tell them about their hang-out (no, it was neither a date nor a non-date), as Kageyama focuses on warming up exercises. She tries to tune out their chat as much as possible, but the girls talk very loudly and Hinata's voice is especially high-pitched and hard to ignore.

"Oooh, you went to see The Cursed Cabin III? I haven't seen it yet! Is it any good?"

"It's very scary," Hinata assures them with absolute sincerity. And she proceeds to talk about a movie that she's never seen and on top of that Noya asks her not to spoil her. How?

Tanaka laughs then, that malicious laughter she exhibits in front of rival teams before a match.

"Ah, I didn't take Matsuo for one of those, huh? I thought he was kinda dorky, with the flowers and the heart-shaped cards, but he turned out a little smoother than that."

Hinata stares, her head tilted, mystified.

"Oh, c'mon!" exclaims Tanaka. "It's the oldest trick in the book! They take the girl they like to watch a scary movie, so when she gets afraid she clings to them. Oh, c'mon, haven't you watched any American movies or TV shows?"

"Yeah, but I watched the good ones," says Ennoshita in a low voice. Noya's eyes light up.

"Oooohhh, Shouyou, did you snuggle with Matsuo lots? How was it? Did your heart beat?"

"…I hope so or she was a corpse," mumbles Ennoshita.

"You know what I meant. Did you feel like your heart was about to leap out of your chest and that you were on a cloud…?"

"Oh my God, everybody reads shoujo now?" Tsukishima whines and Yamaguchi pats her head.

Hinata can't keep tilting her head sideways to show her confusion but she has it written all over her face.

"Well, the movie scared me lots so, yeah, I guess so? But I didn't cling to Matsuo."

"But, why not?" asks Tanaka in such a tone that she can almost see all her shoujo dreams shattered at her feet. "It was the perfect opportunity."

Hinata shrugs.

"Kageyama was there, so I clung to her…"

Tsukishima snorts and mutters something that sounds like of course you did, Yamaguchi's hand can't cover up her giggles, and Suga-san's eyebrows raise a little as Tanaka and Noya frown.

Ennoshita, on the other hand, looks as placid and removed from it all as usual.

"But wouldn't you rather have, I don't know, clung to Matsuo?" asks Tanaka.

Kageyama's gaze digs holes in the gym's opposite wall, making an effort to pretend she's far away from there. In a match, perhaps. At Tokyo.

"No? That's why I clung to Kageyama."

Tsukishima sinks her face on Yamaguchi's lap, who is now using both hands to cover her face; Tanaka and Noya exchange an indecipherable look and Suga-san beams beatifically.

"I'm glad you had such a good time, girls. Now we'd better start warming up before Daichi blows a fuse."

"I heard that, Suga!"

The vice-captain smiles at them one last time before she joins Daichi, to whom she dedicates a look of perfect innocence that doesn't seem to fool her one little bit.

When all the other girls seem focused on something else, Hinata leans over her shoulder and whispers in her ear:

"I think it's best if we don't tell anyone about Fujioka, right? Boys are so touchy with that sort of stuff."

Kageyama nods, distracted: Hinata is so close she can smell her shampoo's citric scent.

"Have you stopped using your shampoo that smelled like tutti-frutti bubblegum…?"

"That was only once, Bakageyama, because I showered at my little cousin's place!"

* * *

Fortunately, the non-date is soon pushed aside: the team can no longer think of anything but their next match against Meiko Academy. As no one is familiarized with the teams on that prefecture, Shimizu-san – through somewhat mysterious means – gets his hands on some DVDs with a few of their latest matches. After practice they all stay to watch them in the video room.

They're good, for real.

"Ohhh, look at that spike, it went past three blockers with no effort at all!"

Meiko's ace is tall, perhaps even a little taller than Tsukishima, and her arms are as strong as Asahi's, if not more so. And she's fast, too, and Kageyama is reminded of Dateko's Nº7's quick reflexes. She glances at Hinata: she has the bad habit of cowering in front of stronger – and taller – players and when she gets scared she freezes up and starts pulling bullshit like serving a ball to the back of her head.

To her surprise, Hinata isn't wearing the usual panicked look. Instead she's leaning forward, her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fists, her mouth slightly open and her gaze glued to the screen.

"Wooow," she lets escape and as though she felt her gaze upon her, she turns her head to meet Kageyama's eyes. Her own are shimmering, like they did in that match against Aobajousai when she told her she would toss her one ball after the other as soon as she got back into the court.

"They're awesome, aren't they, Kageyama?" The corners of her lips start to curl upwards. "I can't wait to play against them."

Kageyama feels her own lips curving in a smile she has to make an effort to contain. It's very hard to do when she sees Hinata like this, her eyes ablaze and her will to win overflowing her, infecting everyone around her. Everything's possible then.

Once Kageyama told her that, as long as she was there, she'd be invincible. Sometimes, though, she wonders whether it's not the other way around.

* * *

Perhaps it should take her a little more by surprise, but Kageyama doesn't even slow down her pace when she sees Fujioka waiting for her next to the vending machine. She replies to his greeting with a nod as she presses the button to get herself a milk carton, and she waits for him to stop pulling on his sleeves nervously, and tell her whatever he came here to say.

"Kageyama-san, ehhhh… I didn't want to bother you or anything, but I had to tell you something and I'd rather not do it in front of Matsuo 'cause, well, he didn't laugh or anything like that, he didn't even mention it, but still…"

Kageyama starts to drink up because it looks like it'll take a while.

"…'cause I don't know what it's like for you girls, but for boys, well, we'd rather not talk about this stuff, do you see? Or, well, you don't. Anyway, I wanted to tell you that—"

At that moment a sneeze interrupts him, and in silence Kageyama hands him a paper tissue, with which he blows his nose.

"Thanks. I mean, not just for the tissue, but for the other day, for not laughing and for walking me home and all that. And I guess, as nobody laughed at my face when I came to school on Monday, also for not telling anyone."

She's not very certain what she should reply to that, so she shrugs and hopes it comes across as "think nothing of it." If she doesn't laugh at Hinata for claiming she loves horror movies, only to jump onto her lap when she gets scared, she's not going to go around making fun of someone who gets into such a state over them. Why does everybody always expect such things from her is a very valid question. It's not like she's anything like Tsukishima or Oikawa-san, is she?

She bets that if she asked Hinata, she'd tell her it's because of that potential mass murderer face of hers.

"Well, that's it. I already said this to Hinata before going into class, but I wanted to tell you too: thanks, and all that."

He sneezes again.

"I think I'm coming down with something," he says and scowls, as though the tissue were to blame. "You know, I… Well, I'd like to do something for you, as a thank you. For the other day and for not telling anyone."

This time it's Kageyama who scowls, and Fujioka must figure out what's coming because he raises his hands in his defense and hastens to add:

"I'm not going to offer to carry your books or anything like that, I told you, I got the message loud and clear, don't worry. It's true I like tall and intimidating girls, but I'm not a moron. I can tell you don't like me that much, do you?"

She shrugs. It's not like she likes him, but after a while she's started to find him less annoying.

"You're less bothersome than others," she says, because she supposes that at this point she ought to say something and that's the nicest thing she can come up with. He seems surprised.

"Oh, well, that's something."

He smiles and stares at his shoes, ruffling his hair and leaving it all messed up. Kageyama shifts her weight from one foot to the other. This conversation is over, isn't it? She's almost out of milk.

Then the boy looks up and when he fixes his eyes on hers, his head is a little tilted to the side, like Hinata's when she's trying to grasp a new move. He bits his lip a little and then blurts out:

"You don't like boys much, do you?"

Kageyama thinks of the boys who wait for her outside class to ask her out, with their friends snickering a few steps away; of the moron with the flower bouquet; and the even bigger jerk who wouldn't take no for an answer, until Hinata and Tanaka got him away from her. There are exceptions, of course – Shimizu-san, for instance, who has never bothered her – but in general, boys are like a pimple in an uncomfortable place.

Not to speak of that idiot of Matsuo, of course.

She shrugs.

"No, not that much."

Fujioka's eyes now resemble an old anime, like Astroboy, and his jaw drops open.

"Oh!" he gasps, in a low voice. "Oh!" he says again, a little louder. "I… I see. Sorry if it was a question too… you know. And thanks for being so… eh, honest. I won't tell anyone, don't worry."

That, at this point, might be a surprise for anybody who knows how little patience Kageyama has for boys. It is one of those mysteries of the male mind she will never decipher, but there he goes.

Kageyama scrunches up the milk carton and tosses it into the basket bin with perfect aim, which provokes an admired whistle from the boy.

"You'd have done well in basket too. Oh! I got it." Kageyama's expression must be questioning enough on its own because he adds: "I know what I can do for you: I'll make boys stop bothering you."

Kageyama raises her eyebrows so much the skin on her forehead tightens. If she hasn't accomplished it with her best face of potential mass murderer, as Hinata would say, what can Fujioka do?

"You won't say you're my boyfriend or anything like that, will you?"

Fujioka shakes his head, raising his hands again.

"Noooo, nothing like that. I swear I won't say anything of that sort. What do you say? Will you let me get them off your case?"

Kageyama bits her lip, and then shrugs. She doesn't think Fujioka will manage it, but whatever. He grins.

"Awesome! Don't worry anymore, I'll deal with them. See you later, Kageyama-san!"

And he almost skips as he walks away.

Later she retells this conversation to Hinata, leaving out the part when he asked whether she liked boys because the answer is way too obvious for her friend, and it doesn't make much more sense to her than it did to Kageyama.

"Boys are weird, for real, aren't they?"

Don't tell me about it thinks Kageyama, who hopes she'll never have to waste her time with any of them ever again.

* * *

The Monday before the game her world crashes at her feet when Nishimoto-sensei asks her to stay behind after class. The teacher pulls out her last exercise sheet and the red marks all over it sign the verdict in a very clear manner.

"Look, Kageyama-san," he begins, intertwining his fingers on top of the proof of her incompetence for Math. "The normal course in these cases is to send you to remedial lessons. But," he hastens to add, when Kageyama opens her mouth, maybe to protest, maybe to scream in horror, "I know on Saturday the volleyball club has a match against a school on another prefecture. Takeda-sensei has been very kind to remind us. Constantly. Like she has also reminded us that it appears that the entirety of Karasuno's good name rests on your shoulders and Hinata Shouyou's, no less." He rubs the bridge of his nose and closes his eyes for a moment, his forehead looking like Venetian blinds with all the wrinkles. "God help us all."

Kageyama clutches her hands behind her back, digging her nails into her skin and trying to keep her expression from reflecting her panic. She can't miss that match.

Nishimoto sighs, opens his eyes, and places his hands on the table, the horrid exercise sheet filled with mistakes underneath his stretched fingers.

"We'll do the following: I'll give you new exercise sheets, which you'll complete during the week. On Friday I'll correct them and if I see at least a little progress, I won't send you to remedial lessons. At least not for another week. And you will convey my incredible generosity to Takeda-sensei, so she leaves me alone. Are we clear?"

She nods at top speed and puts away the exercise sheets in her bag without even glancing at them. When she takes them out at practice, she feels like flinging herself down the stairs: they aren't difficult, they're impossible.

Daichi rubs the bridge of her nose with a look creepily similar to Nishimoto's.

"You can't miss practice and much less the match. You'll have to, I don't know, give up on lunchtime. And someone else will have to do so as well to help you out. I'd offer but…"

"…you're not that good at Math and you terrorize people when you try to explain them," Sugawara finishes, unperturbed at the looks of horror and awe it earns her from the rest of the team. Daichi frowns but doesn't contradict her.

"You're such an idiot, Kageyama," says Hinata, the hypocrite. "Going and getting into this mess, when there's so little time left before the match!"

"Shut up, dumbass. Just 'cause Kenma explains things to you over Skype doesn't make you smarter than me."

"Maybe the two of them combined make one brain cell," mutters Tsukishima in a very audible manner.

Finally, it's Ennoshita who takes one for the team and the rest of the week they spend lunchtime together, trying to get at least the most basic notions to stick in her brain long enough. Hinata gets kicked out from these study sessions when Ennoshita reaches the conclusion that having them together is counterproductive, because they get too distracted. Tsukishima says the real reason is because only a certain amount of sheer idiocy can be tolerated at a time and the two of them combined surpass that quota. Hinata leaves grumbling on missing their extra practice at lunchtime, as though Kageyama's suffering wasn't way worse than hers.

Every torture reaches its end, though, and Friday arrives at long last. Her pulse going a thousand miles a minute, Kageyama hands over to Nishimoto the exercise sheets. The minutes it takes him to go over them are the longest of her life, longer even than the horror movie. She'd much rather watch people getting stabbed and gutted than miss a match due a remedial lesson. She'd almost rather get gutted herself, but in that case she wouldn't be able to play either.

Nishimoto rubs the bridge of his nose again.

"Well, it's something, I suppose. The stick and the carrot do work after all… Anyway: go and tell Takeda-sensei you'll be able to go to the match. This time. I expect an improvement that's a little more constant and lasting in the future, Kageyama-san. I don't want to do remedial lessons either, I don't get paid enough," he adds in a low voice.

Kageyama nods with vehemence and she has to stop herself from running outside the classroom, where Hinata is waiting for her, wide-eyed and her body tensed up as though about to make a jump to spike the ball.

"So?!"

Kageyama nods, the exercise sheets crumpled in her hand, and Hinata lets out a "hurrah!" and punches the air with her fist. Her joy is a bit dampened when she sees Matsuo and Fujioka approaching.

"So you'll be able to go to the game, then?" Matsuo says when Hinata tells them. "Awesome, Shouyou was very worried about that, you know?"

"True, she didn't shut up about it for a sec—"

"Hey, that's not true—"

Fujioka chuckles.

"Yes it is, and I only had to hear about it until Tuesday and that's just because I got sick and I stayed at home until today, I bet Matsuo had to hear a lot more…"

Matsuo takes a step forward to stand between Fujioka and Hinata before the latter can kick him; Kageyama grabs her arm to hold her back, just in case.

"Hey, Matsuo, what happened to your mouth? I've just noticed it."

Now Fujioka mentions it, she notices the boy's got a split lip, the blood already dried. For a moment it crosses her mind that he might've gotten in a fight, but Matsuo? Really?

Against a Chihuahua, maybe.

The boy touches his lip and his face starts to redden from his ears to his chin.

"I fell."

Fujioka laughs again and pats his back.

"You should've said something better, Matsuo, like you got into a fight with three guys or something like that, or the girls will think you're a klutz."

Kageyama refrains from commenting and Hinata, in a very uncharacteristic manner, remains silent. She glances at her and notices that the girl's eyes are glued to her shoes as though she found them fascinating, hair covering her face, and aren't the top of her ears somewhat red, too?

Matsuo bites his lip, makes a grimace and ends up shrugging.

"We don't all have your imagination, Fujioka."

Kageyama feels a tug on her uniform's sleeve and glances down to meet brown eyes shadowed by a mess of orange hair.

"Shall we go practice now, Kageyama-kun? 'Cause we wasted a lot of time this week and we didn't get to practice our new spike that much, are you gonna toss to me? You've got to toss to me—"

"Yeah, yeah, dumbass, let's go."

And they get away from there, and only after several steps does Hinata remember to throw a "see ya later!" over her shoulder, without pausing and without stopping from pulling on Kageyama's arm as though she were about to escape.

The red in her cheeks dims as soon as she has a volleyball back in her hands, and it doesn't come back until Kageyama gets tired of tossing to her, when effort colors her cheeks again with a pink hue and her skin glimmers under midday sunshine.

Like this, with her hair plastered to her forehead, her face red, not out of embarrassment, but due to effort and a huge grin after a well-executed spike, that's how Hinata should always look.

* * *

Meiko Academy is three times bigger than Karasuno High, and their gym looks more like those that the Olympics take place in than one belonging to a countryside high school. The girls on the team are very tall, one or two of them even a little more so than Tsukishima, and from what she can see, they're muscly: surely all of them do weight lifting and physical conditioning. They also appear to be all third years and they are whispering among themselves when they see them arrive.

Kageyama hopes from the bottom of her heart that Hinata is not gaping at everything with her mouth open, as though she were the backwater cousin who just arrived from the deep countryside, because she doesn't want to smack her right before the game.

The captain approaches Daichi with a huge smile to welcome her. She's several centimeters taller, but Karasuno's captain isn't the sort to be cowed by little things like that, and she returns the smile and the handshake. It's her captain smile, the one that doesn't completely reach her eyes, and her handshake is probably one of those that make fingers sting a little afterwards. The other girls on the Meiko team smile too. Some, though, don't seem polite but mocking, and one of them looks more like she is showing her teeth, like Tanaka often does in front of rival teams – and judging from the way Suga-san elbows her, like she was doing until just now.

Kageyama also hopes with all her heart that Hinata isn't beginning to feel cowed, because she'll have to start to shake her no matter how much Suga-san insists those methods don't work. If they were good enough for Iwaizumi-san all these years…

"I hope we have a good game," Meiko's captain continues, her smile still in place. "Your manager can leave your bags at our club room, Chiyo will show the way."

And she gestures to a big girl, bigger than Asahi-san, who approaches with a scowl and turns to Hinata.

"Let's go, it's that way."

Hinata's eyes widen and Daichi hastens to intervene:

"Oh, no, Shimizu-kun is our manager." And she points at the boy, who in that precise moment is dragging their bags with Tanaka's and Noya's non-help.

"Oh, you've got a boy as a manager! That makes me so jealous." The captain's smile doesn't waver at Noya's and Tanaka's murderous glares. "But do you play, sweetie?" she asks Hinata and her smile doesn't disguise her incredulity, but accentuates it. It's the smile you'd give a three year old girl, if you liked to deal with small children, which is not her case.

Hinata's expression begins to lose its usual liveliness to start to transform into her grimace of "I'm being called a midget and I don't like it."

"I'm a regular, a Middle Blocker."

"Oh, c'mon!" the girl that the captain called Chiyo cries out. "You are like, a meter and a half tall!"

Daichi at once steps in front of Hinata, hiding her from view, and Meiko's captain slaps her hand on her forehead. Behind her, though, more than one of the girls on her team doesn't bother to hide her snickering.

"Chiyo, you're such a… I'm so sorry, she has no brain-to-mouth filter… sometimes I don't know if she even has a brain…"

"Hey!"

"No problem," Daichi replies with her most conciliatory tone. "We have a bunch of those in our team as well."

"Should we assume she's talking about us?" Tanaka asks Noya, who shrugs.

"Maybe she means Kageyama."

She throws them a withering glare that has no effect whatsoever.

Daichi calls them into formation before Hinata blows up a fuse but she's vibrating in her place as they bow, her fists clenched and her mouth tense.

"We're going to crush them, aren't we, Kageyama-kun?"

Kageyama looks at Hinata's bright, furious eyes and nods.

"Of course. What else did we come for?"


	6. 6 Never Have I Ever

The match is not an easy one, but they win on the third set with one last spike from Hinata that leaves Meiko's blockers with dropped jaws.

"Ha! Who is a meter and a half tall now?"

"…that'd still be you, moron," Tsukishima hisses and Hinata turns red.

"You know what I meant!"

"Damn right!" cries out Tanaka, who flips off Chiyo. The girl seems about to reply with a punch, but her captain grabs her from behind as Daichi smacks the back of Tanaka's head and Suga pulls Hinata's arm.

"Now, now, girls, let's line up and behave like civilized people or at least fake it, okay?"

The afternoon ends without any major incidents, but the journey to get there was so long that the sun is already sinking in the horizon. Takeda and Ukai escort them to the inn where they'll spend the night, and even though at first they're all tired after such a grueling match, a short while later there's already a bunch of them – Tanaka, Noya and Hinata – running down the corridors and making a fuss as usual. Somehow – most likely due to the fear of Daichi's wrath – twelve girls manage to take a shower and get dressed without causing a pandemonium, but even after they arrange the futons and put on their pajamas, none of them seems too willing to sleep.

"Shall we tell horror tales?"

"No" says Asahi, her tone much firmer than usual and Noya-san doesn't insist.

"We could play Spin the Bottle…"

"…there're no boys but Shimizu and he'd lock himself in the restroom and bolt the door if we asked him to play."

"Truth or Dare?"

"No way, we already know what kind of dares you come up with and after the last time, the dean almost banned us all from the gym."

No one argues with Daichi, the memory of the gym's building covered in what seemed like three kilometers of toilet paper garlands, and the dean's consequent fury, still very fresh on everybody's minds.

"That's it! Let's play Never Have I Ever."

"Ohhhh, good idea! Although it'd be best if we had some alcohol—"

"No, no one's sending Asahi to buy us alcohol."

Asahi lets out a relieved sigh, and several of the girls let out one of disappointment, but Daichi's expression admits no retort.

"We'll play with juice, then. It's not gonna be as much fun but it's what we got. Who starts?"

Kinoshita begins:

"Never Have I Ever received flowers from someone who wasn't a relative."

"Ohhhhh, Kinoshita, we'll get you some flowers if it comes down to it!"

Before drinking, Asahi asks if paper flowers count, Kinoshita shrugs and says yes.

"Never Have I Ever swam at sea at night."

"…slow danced with a boy."

"…got drunk with cherry liqueur."

"Never Have I Ever smoked – not during volleyball season, Daichi!"

"…serenaded the person I had a crush on at a karaoke."

"…cheated on an exam."

(Really, Suga? Really?)

Tsukishima smirks.

"Never Have I Ever barfed on someone."

(To Kageyama's surprise – and a little horror – Hinata isn't the only one to drink).

"Never Have I Ever watched Twilight. No, seriously, none of them."

"…blamed my brother for something I'd done."

"…banged my head on the keyboard when my computer wasn't working."

"…been mistaken for a grade-schooler."

(Hey! exclaim indignantly Noya and Hinata, amongst the generalized laughter).

"Never Have I Ever fallen for a teacher."

"…crashed a party."

"…sent a compromising text message to the wrong person."

(I thought we wouldn't talk about that ever again!)

"Never Have I Ever fell to the floor from high-fiving too hard."

Asahi and Daichi drink their juice, their cheeks very red. But the captain finds her revenge:

"Never Have I Ever called Suga Mom."

Everyone but Suga and Daichi drinks.

Ennoshita smiles very innocently when she says:

"Never Have I Ever blown off the dean's wig…"

(Hinata and Kageyama drink, mortified; Daichi covers her face with her hands muttering I still have nightmares about it and Suga pats her back).

"Never Have I Ever read or watched yaoi."

"…watched porn."

"…strip-teased as a joke."

(It was a joke!

I know, that's why I said it. Now drink up).

"Never Have I Ever kissed someone on the lips" says Narita with a sigh.

Kageyama doesn't drink and neither does Tanaka, but everyone else does.

Including Hinata.

There's a moment of deadly silence, in which everyone's eyes (with varying levels of incredulity painted on their faces) go from Hinata, all red on the face, to Kageyama, who spins her head so fast her neck cracks.

"What?"

Hinata chokes on juice.

"What do you mean what?"

"Why did you drink?!"

Tsukishima rolls her eyes.

"Queen, I thought you'd understood the rules of the game…"

"Eh, Kageyama, I think it's kinda obvious…"

"Oh, so you finally did it with Matsuo! Well, not did it did it, oh my God, that came out awful, you got what I meant, right?"

"Wooooow, Shouyou, congrats! How did it go?"

"Did he kiss you? Was it at school? Was it good?"

Suga knocks her glass on the floor to call for silence.

"This isn't Truth or Dare, girls, no one has to answer any questions, okay? So what do you say if we keep going?"

Some mumble amongst themselves, but Suga's smile and polite tone have that undercurrent of pure steel that can be as frightening as Daichi's wrath. The smile she gives Hinata looks a little more sincere in its kindness and warmth, though the girl's eyes are fixed upon her knees and she doesn't seem to notice. Her hair covers most of her face, although Kageyama can see she's biting her lip and her ears are red. On her part, she's clenching her teeth and fists and it'll take her a while to realize she's digging her nails on her palms. She doesn't hear what Suga says either and they have to repeat it to her twice, and then she has no other choice but to drink because she's definitely fallen asleep in class more than once.

From underneath the mop of orange hair, Hinata glances at her every now and then, but she averts her gaze as soon as she catches her looking.

Once more it's Tanaka's turn, who smirks somewhat malevolently:

"Never Have I Ever kissed a girl on the lips."

Several girls snort and exchange looks.

Yamaguchi halts with the glass midway to her lips:

"A kiss with or without tongue?"

Tanaka seems confused.

"Eh, with, I guess?"

Yamaguchi settles her glass again on the floor and Tsukishima is gaping at her, her eyes like volleyballs, as though she had grown three heads. For once, though, her friend averts her gaze and she doesn't blurt a sorry, Tsukki by reflex like she often does.

Are Tsukishima's cheeks tinted with pink or is it a trick of the light?

For a moment, Kageyama is distracted of her tumultuous and murderous thoughts when she notices that Sugawara, Daichi, Noya, Asahi and Ennoshita are all drinking. For some reason, it's only the latter one that gets all the gawking from the senpais.

"You too, Ennoshita?" Tanaka cries out, in the same tone the History teacher said Et tu, Brute? when she was telling them about Ancient Rome, although Kageyama can't recall much of the context.

She's not the only one who looks dumbfounded: even the girls that drank are looking at her wide-eyed.

Ennoshita shrugs.

"I've got a life outside of this club, believe it or not. Besides, I wanted to know what Katy Perry was bragging about so much," she adds in a completely serious tone, but her lips are trembling a little.

Tanaka shakes her head, sighing.

"There are less and less heterosexuals left… we're an endangered species…"

Noya throws a pillow at her, but Tanaka ducks and it hits Daichi. There's a moment of deafening silence and generalized panic, until Daichi grabs her own pillow and smashes it on Noya's face. In a blink, a merciless battle breaks out, pillows and blankets flying through the air, which reaches an end when Ukai violently knocks on the door:

"EITHER YOU TURN OFF THE LIGHTS AND GO TO SLEEP RIGHT NOW OR TOMORROW YOU'LL GO BACK RUNNING TO MIYAGI, I SWEAR TO GOD!"

In the most absolute darkness, when they've all already stopped talking and shifting and Daichi's snores (that not even Suga dares to complain about) resound several futons away, she feels some tugging on her blanket. She knows very well who it is, so she keeps her eyes shut and grabs her blanket tightly. The tugging persists.

"Pssst, Kageyama. C'mon, Kageyama."

The whisper sounds right next to her ear and she shrinks on herself, trying to stick her head into her neck like a turtle.

"I know you're awake, Bakageyama."

Kageyama grunts.

"Coooomeeeee ooooooon, Kageyaaaaaamaaaa…"

"Shut up or Daichi'll get mad."

"If Daichi gets mad it'll be your fault, for playing hard to get."

Then Kageyama's eyes snap open so she can throw her a withering glare, and Hinata takes advantage of her distraction to snatch the blanket from her fingers and, as you please, she gets into the futon with her.

The sad part is that it's not even the first time this happens, to their teammates amusement, but tonight she really isn't up to receive kicks and tentacle hugs as she tries to sleep.

"Go back to your futon, dumbass."

"No" And then she feels the tentacles closing around her waist and hold on tight. Kageyama grumbles and tries to detach her, but she knows it's a lost cause, especially if she doesn't want to wake anyone else up. Hinata takes advantage and coils her legs around hers and places her head in the space between Kageyama's neck and shoulder.

"You're mad at me."

Each word whispered into her ear lets out an exhale of air on her skin that provokes a shiver. Kageyama snorts but she's careful not to make too much noise.

"Of course I'm mad at you, you don't let me sleep in peace."

"I don't mean that, you were mad at me before, since we played the game. You wouldn't even look at me and you didn't even toss me a pillow afterwards."

Even in a faint whisper, Hinata's voice sounds fragile and hurt, and Kageyama has a hard time breathing; she hates it when Hinata sounds like that, she doesn't want to be the one that causes it. She wants to be the one to put on her face that radiant grin after a successful spike, who paints her cheeks pink after a race, even the one who makes her mad when she beats her at anything. But she doesn't want to be the one to make her cry ever again.

Without thinking about it, her arms wrap around her tiny body and pull her against herself. At such a short distance, she can only breathe the citric scent of her shampoo; the heat of her chest pressed against hers is a burning stove in the middle of summer.

"I could hit you with a pillow now, if it'll make you feel better."

Hinata punches her on the shoulder but without any strength, more the gesture than anything.

"Bakageyama." Her voice no longer sounds brittle, instead it's returned to that mixture of exasperation and fondness she's more familiar with. "I know why you're mad at me."

She frowns, because not even she knows why she's so mad: it's not like she cares at all who any of the other girls on the team kiss or don't kiss; it's not like she felt the slightest envy because all boys are bothersome and moronic (except Shimizu-kun but he doesn't count).

And yet, learning that Hinata kissed a boy infuriates her.

"It's because I didn't tell you, isn't it? I was going to, I swear, but it happened on Thursday and all we talked about this week was the match and well, that was way more important, wasn't it?"

Kageyama would tilt her head, but Hinata's posture won't allow it.

"The match was more important than the kiss?"

Even in the dark she can see Hinata regarding her as though worried for her mental state.

"Of course it was more important, duh."

She doesn't let out a relieved sigh when she hears those words but it's a close thing.

"And besides, well…" She pouts. "I thought you were gonna laugh at me."

She's never felt less like laughing in her entire life, which proves Hinata is a total moron.

"I thought… I thought friends told each other this sort of stuff," Kageyama says, because now that she's saying it, she realizes that she is mad at Hinata because she didn't tell her. Maybe it's not the only reason why she's mad, but still.

Hinata always tells her what she's had for dinner, and what she watched on TV, and which one is the new game Kenma got, and which character Natsu will dress up as for the school play. She knows when she gets a headache, when the nerves before a game give her a stomachache; she's the first one to learn of her bad grades, her fights with the neighbor who doesn't want to return her ball when it falls on his yard. She's committed to memory all her favorite things, all the things she detests; she's the only person that messages her late at night and first thing in the morning, the only one of her teammates she hangs out with when there's neither school nor training. Kageyama doesn't have much experience with this sort of thing because she's never had someone like Hinata in her life, but her cousins always talk about their friends and they're supposed to be those people you tell everything to, all the important and the silly stuff too.

And that Hinata didn't want to tell her this…

Because they are friends, right?

Or has she been deluding herself again, and she's now back at where she started at Kitagawa Daiichi?

"Of course," Hinata replies and Kageyama feels like the knot in her throat unties a little. "And I was gonna tell you, but I was… so embarrassed. It was very silly, you know? Nothing at all like they show it on movies or shoujo."

"What… what was it like?"

In fact, she's not sure she wants to know, but after feeling offended because she wasn't told, she has to ask.

Hinata barely lifts her head and looks around, as though to check everybody else is still asleep. No one moves and Daichi's snores keep their tempo, so she snuggles against her again, even closer to her ear if possible.

"Well, on Thursday me and the girls in class were talking, and Harumi-san was telling us that she'd gone to the movies with her sister and her boyfriend and they spent the whole movie making out. And then they asked me if Matsuo and I had kissed, and I said no, and Mito-san thought it was weird, after all the time we've been going out. I didn't clarify that the only time we went out anywhere was that one time we went to the movies because telling them about Fujioka how that turned out wouldn't have been cool. But I kept thinking about it, because everybody else thought it was weird too, they kept asking if he had never tried to hold my hand, if he'd never made the attempt to kiss me or put his arm around my shoulders or anything like that. It looked like they didn't believe me that much."

More than once Kageyama saw Matsuo trying to surreptitiously put his arm on Hinata's shoulders, but the girl keeps moving so much that you run the constant risk of ending up with an elbow in your eye. Nevertheless she keeps that to herself, and once more she thinks that Hinata's classmates are all absolute morons.

"And well, that Thursday at lunchtime neither you nor Fujioka were there because he got sick and you were studying with Ennoshita and I thought, well, why not? Everybody does it, it can't be that hard. So I asked Matsuo if he wanted to try kissing. And first he got all red but then he said yes, that he had never said so before because he didn't want to pressure me or anything. He was very sweet and all, but…"

"But what?"

She is proud of herself because, despite the knot on her throat, her voice manages to come out more or less normal.

Hinata sighs.

"It was awful, Kageyama. I had to stand on my tip toes and hold onto his shoulders and first we bumped noses and it hurt, and then I wanted to do that thing they do in movies when they tilt their heads a bit, because it seems to work. But I miscalculated the distance 'cause…" Her mumbling turns so soft that's indecipherable and she has to ask her to repeat herself. Hinata closes her eyes and snuggles even closer to her. "I think I smashed my teeth against him 'cause I cut his lip and he started to bleed and it was horrid, Kageyama, if you laugh or tell anyone I'll never speak to you in my whole life, and if anyone finds out I swear I'll kill you."

"You won't because you need me to toss to you. And I wasn't gonna laugh and much less tell anyone."

Hinata opens her eyes to look at her and gauge her level of sincerity. She looks satisfied because she sighs and her body seems to lose a large portion of tension.

"I don't know why people make such a fuss about kissing and all that, you're not missing out at all, Kageyama."

"Maybe you do it wrong."

The girl scrunches up her nose and this time, the punch on her shoulder has a little more force.

"You wouldn't do any better."

"I wouldn't do it, period, and least of all with a boy like Matsuo, and because your stupid classmates told me to."

She thinks that she has earned herself another punch with her words, but instead Hinata pouts again.

"Kissing is overvalued. Or is it overrated? Whatever. I expected, you know, that it'd be a little more like how it's on the mangas. Well, I didn't expect flowers and stars bursting out everywhere but, I dunno, that it'd be a little more kyaaaaahhh and gwaaaaah, like when you get a serve right or you spike past all blockers, right? And not to be so meh. It was very meh."

"You… you wouldn't try again?"

Hinata shrugs.

"After last time, I don't reckon Matsuo wants to and me neither, it was very uncomfortable. Do you think it'd be different with a girl?"

Kageyama chokes on air.

"What?"

"Shhh, Bakageyama, not so loud that you'll wake everybody up. I mean, so many of our senpais have made out with girls, right? And you never see any of them with split lips. So maybe it's easier."

"Or maybe they're not as useless as you."

This time the punch is really hard and she can't hold back a very audible whimper. Both of them hold their breath, petrified, especially when they realize that the snoring has stopped.

"Kageyama, Hinata." The captain's voice sounds clear from the other side of the room, even if she doesn't speak above a whisper. "I don't know what you're doing and I don't care, but you'll end it before I have to go over there and shut you up."

Both of them nod, even though she can't see them, and Daichi seems satisfied with the ensuing silence. Hinata's muscles eventually loosen and she settles again, as though Kageyama were her favorite pillow, and little by little her breath slows down.

Kageyama, on the other hand, takes a long time to fall asleep, and when she wakes up the following morning, what she finds before her eyes is: Tsukishima's mocking smirk, Yamaguchi's poorly concealed chuckles, and Suga-san taking pictures to "add to the album."

Hinata keeps slobbering on her shoulder, unperturbed.

* * *

The week following the match is a succession of strange events.

It begins with Daichi, who approaches her towards the end of Monday's practice. Kageyama is finishing up her stretching and normally Hinata would be helping her and vice versa, but at that moment the girl is pestering Noya-san to show her again her Rolling Thunders or whatever it's called. She's already told that moron a hundred times that she needs to learn to receive the normal way first before trying any of the cool moves the libero pulls.

The captain sits beside her in a very nonchalant manner and starts to stretch, but Kageyama can't help glancing at her from the corner of her eye. As they're an even number, they tend to split up in pairs for stretching and almost always the same pairs remain, and she can't remember a single time when Sugawara didn't pair up with Daichi. But she's not going to refuse when the captain offers to help her, although she can't prevent a knot from forming in her stomach.

Daichi is smiling so it can't be anything too terrible.

"You seem a bit preoccupied, Kageyama. I mean, a little more than usual. How's everything going? Is school alright or…?"

"My grades are fine and Nishimoto said he wouldn't send me to supplementary lessons."

She leaves out the yet.

"That's a relief. Although you should make an effort without getting threatened, but… well, I'm not your mother." Daichi smirks. "That'd be Suga, but don't even think of telling her that."

When she finishes stretching, the captain hands her a water bottle and she thanks her with a bow.

"And how are you doing with other stuff? The girls and such."

Kageyama chokes.

She thought everything was fine. Hinata and her are more synchronized than ever, the combinations with Tanaka and Asahi-san are working out better, and she hasn't gotten into a fight with Tsukishima as of late (well, almost.)

But it wouldn't be the first time she gets it all wrong, would it?

"What…? Did I do something wrong, has anyone complained, it's because…?"

Perhaps she sees traumatic memories from Kitagawa Daiichi written all over her face because she hastens to reassure her.

"No, no, everything's alright, you're playing well with everybody, it's not that. Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you." She pats her back. "I wasn't actually talking about volley."

When her panic fades, Kageyama can only feel sheer confusion. If it isn't about volley, what could she be talking about?

Daichi runs a hand through her short, sweaty, hair, leaving it on end. She glances around, her eyes gliding over the rest of the team, all of them preoccupied with their own stuff. They're kinda far from them and no one seems to be paying them any mind, Kageyama wonders if it's really a coincidence.

There's something very weird going on.

"Look, it's just 'cause the other night, when we were playing Never Have I Ever, things got a little… tense."

"If this is about the dean's wig…"

"Not, it's not about that but please, never bring it up again." Daichi's shoulders shake with a shiver. "I said so 'cause, well, it looked like you were a bit… upset, so to speak, when Hinata," her voice dropped a few octaves, "you know, drank to admit she's had a kiss."

Kageyama doesn't choke because she wasn't having anything to drink, and yet, something odd happens to her throat, which seems to close off all of a sudden.

"If there's a matter of some sort…"

"There's no matter at all. Everything's alright with Hinata."

She takes another sip, although she no longer feels thirsty and she lowers her head a bit, her bangs shielding her eyes. She's not lying. Hinata hasn't mentioned it again and she's refused to answer Noya and Tanaka's questions, until Sugawara managed to get them to shut up about it at last. Air-headed as she is, it doesn't look like Hinata is in any danger of ending up like some of Kageyama's classmates, who only seem to be able to talk about that boy's kiss or that other one's dreamy eyes, and other nauseating bullshit like that.

Besides, Hinata said she didn't want to try it again.

Daichi-san stares at her with eyes a bit narrowed. She feels as though she were getting an X-Ray scan.

"Okay, then. But, see? Sometimes it's fine to admit, at least to yourself, when something isn't fine."

Kageyama is not following her reasoning. Daichi sighs.

"Look: imagine you've got a friend that you spend oh, I don't know, about 80% of your time, at least all the time you can choose whom to spend it with. And everything's fine, right? Then, let's say, for instance, that a girl in the year above yours asks her out to the movies. And imagine that they start hanging out more and more often, and you're left out. It's normal to feel a bit… pushed aside, and all that."

"Ehhh… Hinata forced me to go with her and the boys to the movies, so I don't know…"

Daichi scowls, as though she suspected Kageyama's mocking her, until she realizes that she's speaking in total seriousness.

"It was an example, Kageyama. I mean… Well, I'll be blunt: it's normal to feel jealous."

Kageyama flinches.

"I'm not jealous, I wouldn't kiss Matsuo Akio not even if I got paid," she snaps, with the sort of venom she usually saves for Tsukishima or Oikawa-san when they drive her nuts. Daichi gawks at her.

"…no one thinks you'd want to kiss him, Kageyama, believe me. What I meant was that it's normal if you're a bit bothered because a person who is so… special, like Hinata is to you, starts to spend time with someone else."

For a moment she's about to deny that Hinata might be somebody special to her because she's a dumbass but, now that she thinks about it, it's true that she spends most of her time with her without anyone forcing her to. And when they're not together, they're exchanging volley diagrams or texting or chatting on Skype…

She tries to shake off that thought.

"But… Tanaka said I had to be happy for her and not get jealous, because I'm her friend…"

The captain lets out a sound that's some mix of a sigh and a snort and sounds a bit like you've got such a big mouth, Tanaka. She fixes her brown eyes on hers and even though she doesn't look angry, Kageyam still shivers.

"What matters is not whether you should or should not be glad for her. What you should ask yourself is: are you really glad that Hinata has made out with Matsuo?"

The girl gets to her feet as Kageyama keeps gasping like a fish out of water, unable to make a sound.

"You don't have to answer me that, but you should at least be able to answer that to yourself, don't you think?" She squeezes her shoulder and gives her one last encouraging smile before leaving, and Kageyama feels petrified on the spot.

Until Hinata, the moron, comes and starts tugging on her arm because she wants to get pork buns before the store closes, of course.

The week's weird occurrences don't end there.

Kageyama's has always kept a certain distance from her classmates. She's not like Hinata, who finds new friends around every corner, and if she can't talk about voley, then she doesn't have a conversation topic or interest in finding one. She knows most of them find her cold and intimidating and the shyer ones don't even dare to approach her.

But never before has a boy, who is at least fifteen centimeters taller than her, stammered so much while apologizing for knocking her elbow as he walked past her.

"Ehhh… it's okay? I'm not mad?"

"Th-than-thanks, K-Kageyama-san… I really didn't want to bother you…"

He's as pale and sweaty as Fujioka after The Cursed Cabin III. Kageyama touches her face with her hand: she's not making some awful face, is she?

Her other classmates start acting weird as well: they seem much more scared than usual, but Kageyama doesn't remember doing anything to intimidate them. As a general rule she sleeps during class with her eyes open or she draws diagrams of new plays. She doesn't even look at them, much less speak to them. And yet, now they avert her gaze and they're exaggeratedly polite.

Part of the mystery is solved one day when Noya and Tanaka arrive at practice in stitches.

"Hey, Kageyama! You didn't tell us that your parents worked as accountants for the Yakuza!"

Silence falls upon the gym. Yamaguchi lets slip from her fingers the ball she's been practicing with, Tsukishima rolls her eyes, Daichi hits her forehead with the palm of her hand and Hinata turns to look at her with wide-open eyes.

Noya and Tanaka seem to glow under everyone's attention.

"You didn't tell us either that you were practically a mafia princess."

"Or that you're engaged to the heir of one of the Yakuza's most prominent families."

"That he's super jealous and would drop any guy who spoke to you, cut into little bits in a ditch."

"Or he would hang him after skinning him alive from Tokyo's tower? I didn't get that part right."

"Nah, everyone knows that he'd throw him into the river with a rock tied to his feet…"

"To the sea would be best…"

"Hey, morons!"

Both let out matching pained yelps when Daichi hits them on the back of their heads.

"Stop bullshitting and start to warm-up, will you?"

"But…"

"…you didn't let us tell the best part…"

The aura around the captain has turned incendiary so they both shut up.

Of course, stupid Hinata approaches her, with eyes as round as volleyballs and her mouth hanging open.

"Kageyama, your parents don't actually work for the Yakuza, do they?"

"Of course not, dumbass!"

She tries to tug on her hair, but the girl's gotten very good at dodging her, and she ends up chasing her around the gym.

It's a valid form of warm-up.

Now that the girls bring it up, it's true that people seem to regard her with more fear than usual, and they whisper amongst themselves but shut up when they realize she's looking at them. They even move aside to let her pass when she walks down the corridors.

"Wow, it's got some perks that everyone thinks you're a Yakuza princess, doesn't it?," says Hinata, who freely swings Kageyama's bag as they walk down the corridor, because now everybody gives them a wide berth.

Kageyama grumbles that she's an idiot, not to break the habit. As they turn a corner they find Fujioka, who not only doesn't frighten when he sees them, but greets them and grins widely. And as he bids them goodbye, he winks at Kageyama when Hinata's not looking and gives her a thumbs up before walking away down the corridor.

Hum.

Now that she thinks about it, not a single boy has approached her to ask her out in the last few days.

The strangest thing about that week, though, is something Kageyama doesn't quite realize until the weekend arrives.

Ever since the Friday before the match, she hasn't seen Matsuo Akio even once, neither at lunchtime nor carrying Hinata's books, and the girl hasn't mentioned him at all either.

As though he had vanished into thin air.


	7. 7 The festival

When the festival is announced, Tanaka and Noya insist on the team wearing yukatas because what's the point otherwise?

"C'mon, Daichi-san, say yes. You know that Asahi is dying to wear one but she'd never dare to on her own."

"Noya, who told you that I wanted to wear a yukata?"

"But they suit you so well, Asahi-san!"

Asahi blushes up to her hairline and Sugawara chuckles, placing a hand on the captain's arm.

"Well, why not? What do you say, Daichi?"

She gives her a bright smile, the one that makes her look like a Disney princess, and Daichi sighs and gives in. That's how all of them end up being dragged by the senpais to rent some yukatas, including Tsukishima. Kageyama, more used to being dragged to clothes stores than she'd like, lets it be and Sugawara ends up picking for her a blue yukata with white flowers that's not that bad.

"It matches your eyes, Kageyama."

Hinata regards her with narrowed eyes.

"Her eyes are a little darker, aren't they? More like Prussian Blue than Ultramarine, right?" Everyone stares. "What? I took Arts one semester."

"And you've got the shade of Kageyama's eyes memorized, of course," says Tsukishima without bothering to lower her voice, and Hinata's cheeks compete with the fuchsia flowers on her yukata.

The school festival is brimming with people, and Hinata clings to her arm so she doesn't get lost in the crowd. At first, the Karasuno team gets to the festival together, but soon they disperse in all directions in smaller groups, each one eager to see something different. When everyone else is out of their sight, Hinata drags her to a stall where she buys a caramel apple. She smudges half her face while eating it and Kageyama bursts into laughter as she helps her to clean up with a tissue.

"There's no way to eat a caramel apple without making a mess, Bakageyama!"

"Yes there is, as long as it's not you eating it."

Hinata sticks out her tongue and she looks just like Natasu, so Kageyama laughs louder. She pouts her lips, which are still a bit sticky and stained with red and it looks as though she'd painted them with the cherry flavored lip gloss that actually doesn't taste like anything. The effect is… odd. She'd like to say ridiculous, but that's not the word that comes to mind.

Adorable would probably fit better, with her orange hair for once tamed by a ribbon that matches the obi and the flowers on her yukata, her cheeks dusked with pink and the lights of a hundred lanterns reflecting on her brown eyes.

They'd need hot irons to make her admit that out loud.

"Oooohhh, look! There's a stall to catch goldfish. That's how I got Natsu his, did you know?"

Much to Kageyama's annoyance, Hinata's reflexes turn out to be much better suited for catching goldfish than hers. Laughing, the girl pushes into her hand the plastic bag with the little fish swimming inside.

"Natsu's already got one, you can keep this one."

"What do I want a goldfish for?"

Hinata pouts.

"They're cute?"

"You just don't want to carry around the bag for the rest of the evening."

She keeps the fish, though. There must be some jar big enough at home to put it until she gets a fish tank.

It's quite fortunate she does: Hinata isn't keeping the best balance on her geta sandals so she's constantly clinging to Kageyama's arm. The poor fish would've met an atrocious end, smashed against the floor.

They wander through the different stalls, ferociously competing at each game they participate in. At one of the stalls , they end up getting kicked out for scaring the other kids. They're blaming each other when a high-pitched voice rises over the general racket:

"Sho-chan!"

Kageyama can't stop herself from scowling as she turns around; Hinata, on the contrary, smiles widely.

"Mito-san, Harumi-san! What's up?"

She knows from sight the two girls from Hinata's class, but she wouldn't be able to tell which one is which, even under the threat of getting benched during a game. They're wearing regular street clothes, so they gasp several "awwwws" and "ohhhs" when they see them in yukatas. Before she realizes what's going on, she finds herself dragged towards where the rest of Hinata's classmates are and they get more "awwws" and "ohhhhs". At least from the girls: the boys, maybe too afraid to offend a Yakuza prince, keep their distance. Except one of them, who parts with the flock to approach them, a huge grin on his face. With his hair gelled back and a dark green yukata, she doesn't recognize him at first.

"Fujioka-kun? Wooooow, you look… very different."

His grin remains steady on its place.

"Different in a good way?"

Hinata smiles.

"Of course! It's odd, though… It's the first time I can see your face."

"Thanks, Hinata-san. You two look very nice too. Ohhh, did you go to the stall with the goldfish? We're at that one, to see who knocks down more bottles with the ball. We've got a betting pool going on and everything." He points backwards with his thumb, over his shoulder, where a bunch of girls and boys from Hinata's class are crammed in front of a stall. "Do you wanna try your luck?"

Kageyama's about to say no, even though she likes that sort of game, because she doesn't want to spend her evening with Hinata's classmates. For noisy groups she'd rather stick with her own team, thank you very much. Then she feels a squeeze on her arm, but when she lowers her gaze she notices that Hinata isn't looking at her. She follows her line of vision and oh, a good streak has just broken: Matsuo Akio appears next to Fujioka.

He isn't wearing a yukata or a smile either, and his reply to Hinata's somewhat shrill greeting sounds a bit mechanical to her ears, although maybe that's the background racket.

"How do you do? I didn't know you were coming here," he adds just for Hinata, who shrugs at the same time she seems to clutch her arm even tighter.

"Oh, well, I came with the team."

"Oh, right. I guess you just lost them along the way, with Kageyama-san's exception, of course."

"Eh… yeah? Something like that."

Fujioka is turning his head to look first at one, then at the other, as though he were following a ball that constantly changes players, and then he looks at Kageyama, raising his eyebrows a lot. She's not very certain of what he's trying to tell her, but there's something going on, that she's sure of. Hinata sounds… dulled, when until a moment ago she was the usual ball of energy bouncing everywhere. And Matsuo's lips seem tightened into a very thin line.

Maybe she should have wondered how and why Matsuo had vanished from their lives these past few days, but it was too good a thing to poke at it.

"Hey, Matsuo, it's your turn now, isn't it? After Hayakawa's?"

"Oh, yeah. Shouyou" Is it her imagination or does the girl wince?, "would you wait for me a moment? I'd like to speak with you."

Hinata shifts her weight from one foot to the other.

"Ehhh… alright."

Kageyama snorts, but she doesn't resist when Hinata pulls her towards the stall. A tall, blonde boy (Hayakawa, perhaps?) is tossing the ball, but he's not very good so his friends are laughing at him, and he ends up joining everyone's laughter as well. Then Matsuo's up and Kageyama has to bit her lip.

He tosses pitifully, to the point that his classmates don't even mock him and Fujioka pats his back a few times.

"I don't have any aim at all without a joystick either."

Matsuo shrugs and the man who is in charge of the stall gives them a huge, somewhat yellowish grin: perhaps he's so glad because they're all so awful that no one will get a prize.

"Do any of you want to try once more? Come on, don't you want to get a nice stuffed animal for one of these pretty girls?"

The boys, who have apparently all already tried their luck and emptied considerably their pockets, refuse despite their female friends' protests.

Kageyama hands the bag with the goldfish over to Hinata and steps forward.

"I want to try."

The man looks a bit surprised for a moment, although almost at once his radiant grin makes a comeback.

"Of course: here you go, sweetheart, do your best, okay?" he says, placing the ball on her hand.

All the bottles fall, one after the other, and all around the stall the silence reigns.

"Well done, Kageyama-san!" Fujioka exclaims, earning several puzzled looks.

Hinata instead blurts out a kyaaahhhh! or something like that and tries to clap until she remembers the bag in her hand.

"I'm sure I could do it too, though…"

"…as long as I toss to you."

The argument that would have followed is cut short before it begins with the man at the stall clearing his throat.

"Eh… that was… anyway, you get a prize, congratulations. Which stuffed animal do you want?"

Kageyama frowns and looks at Hinata.

"Which one do you like?"

The girl bites her lip and narrows her eyes, then she points at a koala. Kageyama nods.

"I'll take that one."

As soon as the man places it on her hand, Kageyama trades the bag with the fish for the stuffed animal. Hinata, the idiot, stares at her.

"Now we're even, dumbass."

A blinding smile appears on her face.

"Thanks, Kageyama! It's so cute. Look, Mito-san, isn't it adorable?"

The girl in question and several others in the crowd nod and gasp again their "awwwws" and "ohhhhhs". The boys, instead, and with the sole exception of Fujioka, are all scowling at her, a grimace twisting their mouths.

Although none of them as much as Matsuo. Kageyama holds his gaze and the frown until he looks away. She feels a tug on her sleeve and she finds a pair of expectant brown eyes looking back at her.

"Noya-san just texted me, she says that all the team will get together to watch the fireworks. Shall we?"

Suddenly she seems to realize something, because she glances at Matsuo over her shoulder.

"Oh, I'm sorry! Matsuo-kun, what did you want to tell me?"

He gapes for a few moments and then, with a snort, he shrugs.

"Nothing, we can talk later."

"Great, see you later!"

"Bye, girls!" Fujioka waves at them, but Matsuo's voice isn't heard as they start to walk away.

The team has found a nice spot to watch the fireworks and they're already all there, sitting on blankets on the grass, when they arrive.

"Oh, you've won stuff, well done!"

"I got the goldfish but I gave it to Kageyama and she gave me the koala that she won."

Is it her imagination or the whole team starts to exchange looks at the same time? Daichi looks at Suga, Suga at Asahi, who glances at Noya, the latter at Tanaka and so on and on, until Tsukishima shakes her head with an air of incredulity and Yamaguchi widens her eyes a lot. Kageyama doesn't understand where such a big reaction comes from: isn't Daichi right now handing over to Sugawara one of the caramel apples she bought? Isn't Noya fixing the orange paper flower she made for her on Asahi's hair to match her yukata? Doesn't Tsukishima always give Yamaguchi half of her strawberry cake? What's so odd about her and Hinata exchanging prizes?

(And yet, she feels her cheeks burn as Hinata pulls on her arm so they both settle on the same blanket.)

The fireworks, loud, colorful and spectacular, soon draw her attention and the whole group's.

She's always been fascinated by fireworks, ever since she was little, but her parents never liked them much and she didn't have anyone to enjoy them with. Now she regards them with the soundtrack of the girls' awed cheers, with the heat from Hinata's body leaning on her side, and without a second though, she stretches her arm and wraps it around her shoulders. The girl draws her eyes from the sky to glance at her, and the reflection of the explosion of colored lights on her face has its own kind of fascination. Her lips curl into a smile and at once, so do hers, and for once, Hinata doesn't draw back from her saying she looks like a psycho.

"WOW, DID YOU SEE THAT? IT WAS AWESOME."

Both of them turn to look at the sky, where the fireworks that provoked such an exclamation from Noya still sparkle, but Kageyama's arm doesn't slide off Hinata's shoulders and she doesn't make any attempt to pull away, and instead she remains snuggled against her for the rest of the show.

None of the girls on the team makes a comment and this time, it's almost too easy to ignore the glances they exchange.

* * *

Hinata is taking ages to step out of the classroom. She's already seen all of her classmates walk by, and even the teacher has walked away down the corridor a while ago. What's that dumbass doing? They're going to run out of time to practice after lunch.

Fujioka decided to remain by her side to keep her company, which earned him several raised eyebrows, but Kageyama isn't paying much attention to his blabbering. The boy doesn't seem offended, perfectly capable of carrying an entire conversation on his own.

"I'm gonna go and see what that idiot's up to and drag her out."

"Hey, Kageyama-san, I don't think that's such a good idea – okay, as you wish," he adds at her withering glare.

Her eyes find Hinata at once sitting on her desk, her back to the door, swinging her legs and gesticulating with her hands as she speaks. In front of her, standing very stiff next to a desk, his arms crossed over his chest and his forehead wrinkled like an accordion, Matsuo listens in silence.

"I'm sorry, I know I should've told you before but… it's better this way, I think, right? I mean…"

Hinata waves her hands as though she expects the words to come out of her fingertips. Matsuo bites his lip; he stares at his shoes and nods.

"Okay, whatever you want."

"Oh… okay, we'll leave it at that."

Hinata jumps off her desk and grabs her bento. Matsuo looks up suddenly; he opens his mouth… and his eyes meet Kageyama's, still standing at the door. His eyebrows rise a bit and he lets a sigh escape.

"Your escort has arrived, Shouyou."

She doesn't have to see her face to know she had a question mark drawn on it, and Hinata turns to glance over her shoulder. She blinks a few times when she sees her, as though she were surprised. As though she didn't always wait for her when she doesn't beat her at it.

But then she smiles, her eyes narrowing, and despite herself Kageyama notes that her irritation level drops automatically.

It's very annoying.

"Oh, awesome, I was going to pick you up. You didn't bring pickles today, did you?"

"No one asks you to eat my pickles, dumbass."

"You don't even like them that much; I don't know why you keep bringing them…"

And with a vague wave in the boy's direction, Hinata leaves the classroom by her side, jumping from one subject to the next with the usual speed and disorder. Just for one instant does Kageyama look over her shoulder, and through the door ajar the can see Matsuo one last time, sitting now at his desk with his face hidden between his arms.

Hinata is calling her, impatient as though they weren't late because of her, and every thought on the boy vanishes from her mind.

* * *

When Narita asks where Hinata's personal book carrier has gone off to and the girl replies that they "don't do that stuff anymore," no one in the Karasuno team seems to be very surprised, which seems to surprise her a little.

"Mito and Harumi were quite shocked when I told them."

"That's because your classmates must be total morons."

Kageyama flinches: those words didn't come out of her mouth.

Hinata turns to scowl al Tsukishima.

"Why do you say so?"

The girl snorts, but she kneels in front of her and stares.

"If I ask you some questions, will you be able to answer with absolute sincerity the first thing that comes to your head?"

Hinata glances at Kageyama, her head tilted, she shrugs. It's impossible to follow Tsukishima's thought process.

She ends up shrugging as well and nodding.

"Okay."

Yamaguchi, intrigued, sits next to Kageyama to watch Tsukishima leaning forward, her eyes fixed on Hinata's.

"Do you prefer skin with or without pimples?"

"Matsuo doesn't have that many pimples…"

"The first thing that comes to your mind…"

"Fine, without, okay?"

"Curly or straight hair?"

"Straight."

"Long or short?"

"Long."

"Light brown or black?"

"Black."

"Brown or blue eyes?"

"Bl-blue…"

Hinata's voice is growing fainter with each answer and she seems to be shrinking on herself, a knowing smirk curves Tsukishima's lips.

"Volley or shoujo?"

"He's not into shoujo!"

"Bah: volley or heart-shaped cards?"

"Well… volley obviously…"

Tsukishima gets to her feet and looks down on her.

"And you expected anyone with half a brain to be surprised? Let's go, Yamaguchi, overexposure might damage us."

She holds out her hand for the other girl, who takes it at once, and Tsukishima pulls to help her stand up.

"That was almost sweet of you, Tsukki" says Yamaguchi as they pull away, still holding hands, and her friend snorts.

"Shut up, Yamaguchi."

Kageyama offers Hinata her hand to help her stand up and she grabs it in silence. None of them brings up Tsukishima's peculiar interrogation, much less do they bring up Matsuo, and instead they throw themselves headfirst into training.

Every now and then, she catches Hinata glancing at her from the corner of her eye during practice, so much that she gets hit with the ball more than once. But when Kageyama turns to look at her or yells at her, the girl hastens to turn her face, her ears going scarlet.

* * *

The entire Karasuno team is focused on the upcoming training camp at Tokyo, where they'll face Nekoma once more and new teams they haven't met yet; on the horrid exams they have to pass in order to be able to go to the trip (Hinata, Kageyama, Noya and Tanaka suffer a few nervous breakdowns along the way); on the preliminaries that are drawing closer.

Shimizu-san introduces them to Yachi Hitoka, a first-year boy who could become his replacement once he graduates. He's short, blonde and looks always near a nervous breakdown; Tanaka and Noya are under threats by Daichi not to intimidate him.

"If you treat him like you do Shimizu-san, I'll rip your arms off."

Little by little, Yachi seems to be losing his terror of the girls' gang, although he keeps jumping if they talk to him too suddenly. He and Hinata seem to get along particularly well and Kageyama doesn't want to acknowledge the knot that twists in her stomach when she ponders on it.

When he helps them to study English – it's their karma, it'd seem – in the breaks they take between exercises Yachi won't stop talking about Shimizu-san: he's so smart and kind and he looks so cool with his glasses and when he's talking to him, he's almost afraid that his fangirls will attack him or something, isn't he the most handsome boy at school?

Hinata and Kageyama exchange glances behind their English book: Yachi could turn out worse than Tanaka and Noya combined.

One day, as Shimizu-san is talking to him (Shimizu-san, talking: they haven't gotten used to such a miracle yet), Yachi stares at him and it almost looks like he has stars in his eyes like a shoujo manga, and when Shimizu fixes a rebellious strand of hair on Yachi's forehead, he turns tomato red.

Tanaka snorts.

"Am I really the only heterosexual here?"

Everybody ignores her, with the exception of Ennoshita, who tilts her head, pensive.

"Is bicurious good enough for you?"

The other girl stares at her with narrowed eyes, as though she believed she was mocking her. Ennoshita holds her gaze without blinking and Tanaka sighs and shrugs.

"It's something, I guess…"

Kageyama is not that concerned about Yachi after that.

Without Matsuo and with Fujioka's presence reduced to an effusive greeting when he crosses their path in the hallways, everything has finally gone back to normal.

Almost back to normal.

Because more than once she surprises Hinata, glancing at her from the corner of her eye, and turning red when she catches her, but she no longer averts her gaze and she holds it instead, her chin up, and it's Kageyama who several times has to lower her eyes, her cheeks burning without knowing very well why.

They spend lunchtime just the two of them again, one right next to the other, and it's not like it bothers her but, has Hinata always sat so close? Has it always felt so natural for them to stick their noses into the other one's bento and eat what the other girl dislikes without asking first?

Sometimes Kageyama finds herself hesitating over things she didn't use to. Hinata has had that damned grain of rice stuck to her face for a good ten minutes and she has yet to gather her courage to get it off her cheek, when a while ago she would've done it without thinking twice.

(She does it at last, of course, and Hinata's skin burns under her fingertips).

There are other things that for the very first time she wonders whether they're normal or not. Smoothing out her skirt when it's rode up too much, fixing her uniform's bow, putting a rebellious strand of hair back in its place. It sometimes earns her a pout or a glowering glance, but no matter how crimson she gets, Hinata never pushes her hands off and she always lets her get her way; the same way Kageyama lets her cling to her back for a piggy-back ride or hold her hand for no reason, something she's been doing more and more often as of late.

She's never had friends like this, who come over her house and share her bed and at every moment seem to be breathing the same air as she does; she's an only child without cousins her same age and her own parents aren't too much into hugging and cuddling. She lacks a frame of reference: Hinata is the first one to breach the boundaries of her personal space, she is the only one Kageyama's willing to allow to do so.

In silence she observes her classmates, the girls on the team, in search for answers. She can't get anything out of her classmates' interactions: their dynamics are too alien for her. The girls on the team in general seem all affectionate and tactile – even Tsukishima sometimes takes Yamaguchi by the hand, Daichi likes to whisper into Suga's ear, and Noya climbs onto Tanaka's shoulders with ease. Amongst them, Hinata and she don't draw much attention.

Even though Tsukishima shouts they should get a room when Hinata hugs her after a particularly great toss and more than half the team giggles without hiding it at all. Even though everybody, even the coach, go straight to ask Kageyama when they want to know something about Hinata and vice versa. As though they were connected and they instinctively knew everything about each other at all times.

Most of the time, they do.

But it isn't strange for Kageyama to pay so much attention to Hinata that she knows at once when she's having an off day, when her leg or elbow hurts a little but she doesn't want to admit it, when she's in the best form to make the highest jump. She's her partner, she's got to observe her to adapt to her movements as best as possible.

And if she notices other stuff about Hinata that has nothing to do with her volleyball performance, if she's distracted by the gleam of her hair under the sun, by her half-open lips a bit red after biting them, by the curve of her neck when she tilts her head in confusion, or if she stares when her shirt sticks to her body, that's between Kageyama and her own thoughts.

(She never used to wonder whether that was normal or not: it was just Hinata, who started infringing every interstice of her life and before she noticed, she'd had ingrained herself into it like a vine on the wall. But before it was just the two of them, and then it wasn't, and now it's just them again and everything is very confusing for her).

Now that she knows it'll just be Hinata waiting for her outside her classroom, without annoying interference of any third parties, she feels that the clock's hands slow down as her heart speeds up during those last endless minutes before the bell rings. Of course she wants the class, always a torture, to be over, so she can feel a volleyball in her hands again.

But perhaps it's not just that.

Perhaps it's the relief of a constant: Hinata will always be there, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, ready to start firing a hundred questions per minute, to snatch her bag or her bento every other day, to challenge her to a race. Always there, also, to spike a toss and Kageyama will never have to doubt herself again before tossing behind her back.

Perhaps it's the fact that she can no longer picture practice, lunchtime, or a single morning without Hinata there, challenging and annoying her and always by her side.

Perhaps she doesn't want to either.

To the top. So be it at the top of Japan or the whole world: Hinata has promised her and that promise reassures her more than she's willing to admit.

One afternoon after practice they're walking together, as usual, towards where Hinata's parked her bike. It's Kageyama's turn to carry their bags, so Hinata takes the chance to grab her hand and intertwine their fingers. Kageyama no longer bothers to look around to check if anyone's watching, because deep down she knows that, even if there was someone there that could see them, she wouldn't be willing to let go of Hinata, who swings their joined hands without a care in the world.

She feels a squeeze on her hand when Hinata abruptly pulls to a stop. Kageyama frowns.

"What's wrong, dumbass? Don't tell me you forgot something."

Hinata shakes her head, her messy hair blending in with the orange sunset's background. Her eyes are wide open and fixed on hers, and she's biting her lip. Despite herself she starts to get a bit worried.

"Is there something wrong? Are you feeling off?"

Maybe those last jumps were overdoing it, maybe for once she's too tired or sore to face half an hour riding a bike uphill. She feels a tad guilty, but Hinata's the idiot who always yells one more time, Kageyama! Toss to me one more time!

"I wanna try something," she says, dispersing Kageyama's thoughts in every direction.

"Now? Wouldn't it have been better at the gym? We don't have a ball…"

Hinata scrunches up her nose and shakes her head again.

"It doesn't have to do with volley, it's something else." She raises her chin, her eyes riveted on hers, her hand squeezing hers tight. "Would you let me try?"

Somewhat disoriented, Kageyama nods. Her disorientation grows when Hinata steps on a brick flower bed and she looks at her, almost at eye-level. Kageyama waits, but the girl does nothing and she begins to get impatient. Hinata sighs.

"I can't when you're staring like that. Could you close your eyes for a moment?"

Kageyama can feel each and every single one of the wrinkles forming on her forehead.

"Why do you want…?"

"Do you trust me?"

She swallows. Hinata's expression has that odd intensity that can make people's hairs stand on end, that intensity she remembers from that first match so long ago: we haven't lost yet. Whatever this is, it's not a joke.

And doesn't she owe it to her, after all?

Who trusts anyone 100%?

Hinata Shouyou did and now it's her turn to jump with eyes closed.

She closes her eyes and waits. At first, nothing happens and the silence is asphyxiating. Despite herself, she fears a joke of some sort, that she'll paint her face with a marker or something dumb like that.

Instead, she feels a warm exhalation on her skin and then, barely a brush, very soft, on her lips. A hesitant brush that turns into pressure against her lips and…

Oh.

She snaps her eyes open and Hinata is impossibly close, her eyelids shut, and she could count her eyelashes, glinting under the last rays of sunshine; she could enumerate the nearly invisible freckles on her nose; she could…

She could lean forward and return the kiss.

The girl stumbles and at once Kageyama's hands grip her waist, and with a sigh against her lips, her entire body seems to mold against hers as her fingers get tangled in the hairs on the back of her head, as though she wants to make sure she won't escape.

(Kageyama doesn't plan to go anywhere).

Time ceases to possess any relevance at all: a kiss turns into two, into three, it slips from her lips to the curve of her mouth, to the nose and the cheeks and then it returns to the mouth; Kageyama's fingers slide until they brush against the warm patch of skin between the shirt and the edge of the shorts, and Hinata's shiver pulls her even closer; and the fingers tugging on her hair could hurt but instead just burn against her skin.

One minute, or two, or ten; a second or a century later: one of them or both end up pulling their lips apart for a moment, when breathing becomes a necessity. Hinata's cheeks are very red and in her eyes, snapped open, she recognizes the glow after a successful spike. Her heart is jumping, but she doesn't know if it's hers or Hinata's, her chest pushed tight against hers, or both of theirs.

The girl's lips begin to curve into a smile.

"Kyaaaahh" she whispers, and the breath of her words brushes against her lips.

Kageyama frowns.

"For me it was more like gwaaaah."

"No, no, it was definitely kyaaaah."

"Gwaaaah."

They have to try it again, of course, to clear all doubt.


	8. 8 Epilogue

The most amazing thing is, perhaps, how little everything changes.

Hinata and she keep competing at every little thing: who gets to the gym first, who manages to pick up more volleyballs in the shortest amount of time, who can mop the floor the fastest. They keep arguing and calling each other "Bakageyama" and "dumbass"; they keep shoving each other when they enter the gym; she keeps tugging on Hinata's hair when she gets on her nerves – although, more often than not, her fingers end up sliding through her hair as a caress. As always, Hinata waits for her outside her classroom if she doesn't beat her to it, and they take turns to carry each other's books. They remain those two idiots with only volleyball on their minds, like Tsukishima says, always thinking about the next match, the next play, the next step on their way to the top. Hinata still claims that her smile is scary and she still insists on chasing her around the gym to make her pay.

They still sleep on the same bed or futon, they still sit by each other's side at lunchtime and on bus rides. But underneath the blankets, maybe Hinata clings to her and snuggles her face against her chest, maybe Kageyama's fingers draw spirals on the skin of her back. Maybe more often than not Hinata sits with her legs on Kageyama's lap, maybe the latter fiddles with the rim of her skirt or her shorts, and no matter how red her cheeks get, Hinata never pushes her hands off. It's not like she doesn't take the chance to sneak her hands underneath Kageyama's blouse when she hugs her, cleaving shivers on her back with her fingertips.

They still meet at the school entrance to race to the gym or run all the way to the exit after practice, but nowadays the race is postponed for a kiss or two.

None of them bring up whether or not they ought to tell the team, and anyway it ceases to matter the day dumbass Hinata, happy that they finally got their new play right, plants a kiss on her mouth in the middle of practice.

Maybe it should surprise them how little it surprises anyone, but at least Kageyama is already used to the fact that the entire universe seems to notice things before she does.

One day Hinata pulls on her hand, a grin on her lips that does weird things to Kageyama's stomach.

"C'mon, Kageyama, there'll be no one there and we still got ten minutes before the bell rings."

Her resistance is more of a front than anything and she lets herself be dragged by Hinata (she always lets herself be dragged by Hinata, it'll become her epitaph) towards the storage room behind the gym where dusty nets and deflated balls, broken chairs and unstuffed mats pile up. Kageyama makes a last attempt at maintaining her dignity, pausing before the closed door.

"Are you sure it's not locked? Won't someone come in?"

Hinata rolls her eyes and instead of replying, she stands on her tiptoes, her hands grabbing Kageyama's shoulders to impulse herself. She doesn't give in even a bit or lean her head a single centimeter, and Hinata's lips turn into a pout.

Maybe she leans in a little.

Hinata plants a kiss on her lips and practice does help, because their noses no longer bump, they no longer have anything to fear from their teeth, and when Kageyama parts her lips slightly open the other cheat is already sneaking in the tip of her tongue and, oh.

It'd be best if they got into the storage room.

Hinata somehow finds the doorknob as Kageyama grabs her chin so she can pour kisses on her mouth, her nose, her eyebrows. The girl lets out a giggle when she almost falls backwards while opening the door, but her reflexes help her keep her balance as she grabs onto Kageyama's waist. She's about to call her a dumbass, but it's more important to place another kiss on the corner of her mouth, and she tries to kick the door closed behind her and she nearly stumbles, and then the dumbass does laugh and then…

"You've got to be fucking with me."

An ice bucket wouldn't have had a more immediate effect. At once both of them turn their heads, surely with the same horrified expression painted on their faces.

But nothing could've prepared them for the scene before their eyes.

On top of a pile of mats sits Tsukishima, her face more vexed than they've ever seen it. And she's not alone: straddling her legs, with her skirt riding up quite a lot on her thighs, they find Yamaguchi, her face fuchsia underneath her freckles, Tsukishima's hands clutching her waist.

Kageyama raises an eyebrow and glances at Hinata.

"So no one was going to be here, right?"

"Oh, shut up, Bakageyama."

"Why are you still here? Why haven't you gotten out of here?"

Tsukishima's voice sounds super annoyed, perhaps beyond all possible vexation, but also a little trembling. Are her cheeks beginning to pink? Now that she looks at her closely, she seems to have her face stained with something purple-ish and glimmering, the same shade as Yamaguchi's lips, whose head looks like it's about to explode.

Kageyama starts to tug on Hinata's arm because she doesn't want to remain there and not because she's afraid of Tsukishima but because she really doesn't want to stay, but the dumbass digs her heels on the floor before she can drag her through the door.

"That's the cherry flavored lip gloss, isn't it? Did you notice it's actually flavorless?"

She gives her arm one last tug to get her out of there before either of the other two can react and she slams the door shut. They stare at each other for a while in silence.

"Did you know…?"

She shakes her head and Hinata nods.

"Me neither."

Definitely, Kageyama will always be the last one to figure things out, but at least now she's not the only one.

* * *

They come back from their training camp at Tokyo more determined than ever to win, each one on the team polishing their new weapons, slicking up the gears so Karasuno conquers the skies once more. Spring high preliminaries are just around the corner and almost the sole conversation topic there is.

"If we want to face Ushijima Wakatoshi and got to the nationals, we have to beat the Grand Queen first."

"I know that, moron. Now, do you want me to toss to you again or not?"

Of course Hinata wants another toss from her, she always wants another toss from her, even when she's about to fall down from exhaustion and Kageyama is the one who has to say it's enough before she pulls a muscle. In the constant whirlwind that implies having Hinata in her life, there are some constants that give her a certain sense of calm.

A sense of calm that stumbles when the dumbass throws a way too brilliant grin into her direction, stars glimmering in her eyes as she blurts out a you're incredible that weakens her knees and makes her head spin.

Everyone else is too immersed in their own training to make much fun of Kageyama and the faces she makes when Hinata suddenly blurts out a compliment. Even Tsukishima now trains until sweat plasters her blonde hair against her face, a new determination in her jumps and blocks, and the rest of the team won't be left behind either.

Karasuno will soar or crash, but they won't hesitate before the jump.

There's a brief interruption in their monothematic conversations on the tournament when one afternoon Tanaka shows up at the gym trailed by a boy who is carrying all of her stuff.

The boy in question is Fujioka.

Hinata and Kageyama exchange a glance as the rest of the team gawks at Tanaka. She shrugs.

"He saw me carrying my bag and the model for Biology and he offered his help. Isn't he such a charming kouhai? Hey, Fujioka-kun… your name was Fujioka, wasn't it? You can leave it over there if you want, and thanks a lot again."

Fujioka grins. He has to look up a little to meet with the girl's gaze.

"Yes, Tanaka-san!"

Noya approaches her with a smirk to elbow Tanaka in a very unsubtle manner. Tanaka looks somewhat befuddled, and is that a smile on Shimizu-san's face?

"It's the relief," Daichi mutters behind her and now it's Suga the one to put her elbow to use.

The boy bids them goodbye with his usual effusiveness, almost skipping as he walks to the door. Before crossing the threshold he pauses for a second and glances over his shoulder, his eyes meet Kageyama's.

Slowly and trying to make sure the gesture goes unnoticed to the others, Kageyama raises her thumbs in his direction. Fujioka looks surprised, but he winks at her and leaves the gym. She knows it was the right call when she finds Hinata looking at her with a smile on her lips.

"Behold the Queen, making new friends and everything."

"Shut up, dumbass!"

And she grabs her by the hair as the girl shrieks, but both of them know that it's more theatrics than anything, because Kageyama's fingers for a long time now dissolve into caresses when they touch her.

* * *

It's a stupid field trip with all the first year classes to the Natural History Museum, which excites Tsukishima (according to Yamaguchi, the official translator of her friend's lack of expressivity) and bores to tears both Kageyama and Hinata, who'd much rather find themselves back at the gym.

The visit wouldn't have anything worth mention for them, if at one time the students are allowed to walk around the museum on their own, they didn't encounter a spectacle that makes Hinata stop dead on her tracks.

On a bench a few meters from them, Matsuo Akio sits. Kageyama knows that things have gone somewhat cold between them and that he barely talks to her in class and when he does, he's often a tad barbed, so Hinata avoids him.

He's not alone, though: by his side there's a girl, a little shorter than Hinata perhaps. She's got brown curls, not the bushy and tangled kind, but the sort that fall in perfect ringlets behind her ears, kept in place by a red bow. She wears big glasses that make her face look quite small and she's got a smile with tiny, straight teeth; her uniform is spotless, each sock right in its place.

She's showing Matsuo how to make an origami crane with her little white hands and the boy stares at her, mesmerized.

"Oh," Hinata breathes and Kageyama doesn't like that she can't quite read her expression at the moment.

"Ah, he got himself another one" Tsukishima says with her usual lack of interest. Yamaguchi bites her lip.

"She's very… very…"

"Cute?" Hinata suggests.

Yamaguchi shrugs.

"Actually I was gonna say moe…"

Tsukishima doesn't even bother to hide her snickering.

Kageyama frowns and studies the girl. With such delicate, white hands, with long nails painted pink, she's sure that girl has never spiked a ball that managed to get past three blockers much taller than her. No one with such white skin unblemished by bruises on elbows and knees could have ever thrown herself at the floor to receive an impossible ball and hit it back after everyone else had deemed it lost. Surely someone with such an unwrinkled uniform neither spills half of her food all over herself nor ends up with grains of rice stuck on her face, nor does she jump to cling to someone else's back for a piggyback ride. Those curls wouldn't survive a race and she can't see a girl like that soaring in the air with a jump that seems to make wings grow on her back.

"I don't think she's cute," she says and it's true: brown is such a boring hair color after all and a smile like hers isn't capable of dazzling with the radiance of the sun.

Tsukishima snorts, Yamaguchi giggles behind her hand and Hinata stares, confused.

"Why do you sound so angry…? Oh!" If her life were a manga, a bright lightbulb would appear over her head as her lips curve into a knowing smile. She grabs her arm and glances at her from under her lashes, imitating Noya-san when she speaks to Asahi. "You don't have to get jealous, you know? I like them taller, with black, straight hair and blue yes. And it's much better if they play volley instead of doing origami."

"Oh my God, just get a room," Tsukishima whines, covering her face with her hands; Yamaguchi gapes and Kageyama can feel the smoke coming out of her ears.

"I'm not jealous!"

She tries to get out of Hinata's grip but the girl grabs her arm tight and her smile widens.

"Of course not, if you have no reason to be. I like you better than anyone."

She wants to call her a dumbass, she wants to tug on her hair, maybe toss her into the air. Her face burns and where Hinata's fingers close around her arm she feels feverish and she's a moron and above all things, she wants to kiss her until she wipes that smile off her face and leaves her breathless.

Hinata Shouyou isn't a tall boy waiting outside her classroom to ask her out, she'll never give her flowers or open the door for her so she walks in first. Hinata Shouyou doesn't know how to make cute heart-shaped cards with romantic quotes, she still eats as though she were five years old, and she insists on sharing her futon only to kick her all night long, she's loud and dumb like no one else.

Hinata jumped with her eyes closed, she shouted I'm here when the silence was deafening and promised her that she would defeat her even if it took her twenty years to do so. Hinata keeps challenging her every day and she keeps the score of her victories and defeats; insists on carrying her books every other day, she always asks for one more toss and her smile is the first day of summer after the most withering winter.

On the bus ride back from the field trip, Kageyama takes her hand and squeezes it tight, whispering I also like you better than anyone and this time it's Hinata's turn to blush and hide her face on her shoulder. Kageyama, after a quick look around, places a kiss on her forehead.

She also tugs on her hair.

For being such a dumbass .


End file.
